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Riken and IBM have coupled the IBM Quantum 'Heron' processor with the Fugaku supercomputer in a closed-loop workflow to address a chemistry problem. This integration enables continuous data exchange rather than sequential processing, enhancing the efficiency of high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

Fugaku, with 7,630,848 cores, operates alongside 152,064 classical nodes for this demonstration. The method 'Sample-based quantum diagonalization' (SQD) allows the quantum processor to provide samples from a large state space, which the classical system then utilizes for further computations. The results were presented on January 29, 2026, at Supercomputing Asia 2026, highlighting the potential of integrating quantum processing units in existing workflows and future inclusion of GPUs.