The Open Compute Project (OCP), through its Future Technologies Initiative (FTI) Quantum Workstream, has published “Integrating Quantum Processing Units into Data Center Infrastructure,” its first community white paper focused on quantum system deployment.
This release establishes a foundational framework for integrating quantum processing units (QPUs) into modern data centers as accelerator-class resources alongside AI and HPC infrastructure. The paper examines the infrastructure, operational, and systems engineering considerations required to support quantum computing within production environments.
What Readers Will Learn:
- Why quantum systems cannot be deployed using a one-size-fits-all infrastructure model
- How different quantum modalities influence cooling, networking, control, and facility requirements
- Why classical computing infrastructure remains critical for scalable quantum computing
- The operational challenges associated with integrating QPUs into production data centers
- How industry collaboration can help standardize quantum infrastructure deployment
Key Findings:
- Not all quantum computers require ultra-low-temperature cryogenic systems. Some modalities use cryogenic cooling to improve qubit performance, while others operate entirely at room temperature.
- Quantum deployments can generally be categorized into three infrastructure classes: room-temperature systems, laser-based systems, and cryogenic systems.
- The path toward large-scale logical qubit systems is heavily influenced by classical computing architectures, including controllers, networking, orchestration, and data movement infrastructure.
- Quantum computing deployments vary significantly across modalities and even among systems built on the same modality.
- Advances in system stability and environmental robustness are making it increasingly feasible to colocate certain quantum systems within production data center environments.
Figure 1: Three common categories of quantum computing deployment. The system on the left is a room-temperature photonic system from ORCA Computing deployed in a standard rack format. The center system is a laser-cooled platform from Infleqtion that uses protective enclosures to isolate the system from environmental contaminants such as dust and vibration. The system on the right is a cryogenic deployment from Oxford Quantum Circuits, where the enclosure maintains ultra-low temperatures required for superconducting qubit performance.
Community Collaboration
This effort is driven by a global community including organizations such as the National Quantum Computing Centre and companies including Dell, D-Wave, Dirac, Fujitsu, Infleqtion, Maybell, Oxford Quantum Circuits, QBlox, Quantum Brilliance, Zero Point Cryogenics, IonQ, IQM, Pasqal, and ORCA Computing.
Looking Ahead
This white paper represents the first step toward a broader OCP Quantum Ready ecosystem, with future work focused on standardizing system architectures, control frameworks, interoperability models, and facility design considerations for quantum computing at scale.
OCP is also expanding its focus beyond QPUs to examine additional quantum technologies that may provide value within future data center environments, including quantum timing, sensing, networking, and communication systems.