Oracle brings Helios quantum computer to the OCI cloud

Oracle brings Helios quantum computer to the OCI cloud

Oracle and Quantinuum have entered into a multi-year partnership to bring quantum computing to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Through a new quantum service, OCI users will gain access to the Helios machine, in an Oracle AI data center in the United States. Financial details and an exact rollout schedule have not been disclosed.

The deal allows OCI users to combine Helios with Oracle’s GPU and high-performance computing services. Helios runs on-site within OCI, integrates with existing OCI services, and falls under the same governance framework that customers already use.

Whereas quantum access is often provided through a separate external service, Oracle is deploying the hardware in its own data centers. This means customers do not need to adjust their management and compliance models.

Oracle plans to launch the quantum service in preview in the coming months. This will include Quantinuum’s development stack, along with open-source frameworks for hybrid programming, enabling developers to build and test quantum-classical applications.

What Helios can do

Helios was commercially launched in November. According to Quantinuum’s product datasheet, it is a barium-based trapped-ion system with 98 physical qubits and all-to-all connectivity. The infidelity of two-qubit gates is typically 8 × 10⁻⁴.

According to the Quantum Computing Report, applying error correction yields 48 fully corrected logical qubits with 2:1 encoding, or 94 logical qubits with error detection. The same source reports that Quantinuum connects Helios to Nvidia GB200 hardware via NVQLink to accelerate the decoding of quantum errors.

Oracle and Quantinuum aim to explore how hybrid quantum-AI infrastructure can tackle highly computationally intensive problems. Universities and research institutions should also gain broader access.

“We ​believe the ⁠next phase of enterprise computing will be shaped by bringing quantum, AI and high-performance ​computing together,” says Quantinuum CEO Rajeeb Hazra. He describes a deeply integrated environment for hybrid workloads.

Tip: Oracle uses as little AI as possible to achieve maximum impact