IBM and RIKEN, a national research laboratory in Japan, today unveiled the first IBM Quantum System Two ever to be deployed outside of the United States and beyond an IBM Quantum Data Center.
The availability of this system also marks a milestone as the first quantum computer to be co-located with RIKEN's supercomputer Fugaku—one of the most powerful classical systems on Earth, IBM said.
This effort is supported by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO), an organization under the jurisdiction of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)'s "Development of Integrated Utilization Technology for Quantum and Supercomputers" as part of the "Project for Research and Development of Enhanced Infrastructures for Post 5G Information and Communications Systems."
IBM Quantum System Two at RIKEN is powered by IBM's 156-qubit IBM Quantum Heron, the company said.
At a scale of 156 qubits, with these quality and speed metrics, Heron is the most performant quantum processor in the world. This latest Heron can run quantum circuits that are beyond brute-force simulations on classical computers, and its connection to Fugaku will enable RIKEN teams to use quantum-centric supercomputing approaches to push forward research on advanced algorithms, such as fundamental chemistry problems.
The new IBM Quantum System Two is co-located with Fugaku within the RIKEN Center for Computational Science (R-CCS), Japan's premier high-performance computing (HPC) center.
The computers are linked through a high-speed network at the fundamental instruction level to form a proving ground for quantum-centric supercomputing.
This low-level integration allows RIKEN and IBM engineers to develop parallelized workloads, low-latency classical-quantum communication protocols, and advanced compilation passes and libraries. Because quantum and classical systems will ultimately offer different computational strengths, this will allow each paradigm to seamlessly perform the parts of an algorithm for which it is best suited.
This quantum computer expands IBM's global fleet of quantum computers, and was officially launched during a ribbon-cutting ceremony on June 24, 2025, in Kobe, Japan.
"The future of computing is quantum-centric and with our partners at RIKEN we are taking a big step forward to make this vision a reality," said Jay Gambetta, VP, IBM Quantum. "The new IBM Quantum System Two powered by our latest Heron processor and connected to Fugaku, will allow scientists and engineers to push the limits of what is possible."
The installation of IBM Quantum System Two at RIKEN is poised to expand previous achievements by RIKEN and IBM researchers as they seek to discover algorithms that offer quantum advantage: the point at which a quantum computer can solve a problem faster, cheaper, or more accurately than any known classical method.
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