Quantinuum and Oracle bring Helios quantum computing to OCI

Quantinuum's 98-qubit Helios system will be deployed in an OCI AI data center, with managed access to quantum, HPC, and GPU computing.

Oracle and Quantinuum have entered a multi-year partnership that will make Quantinuum's Helios quantum computer available through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), alongside Oracle's high-performance computing and GPU resources.

The companies plan to provide access through an OCI quantum service, allowing customers to run quantum workloads without installing or operating dedicated quantum hardware. The service is also intended to connect quantum computing with OCI's existing classical computing infrastructure.

Helios is Quantinuum's third-generation quantum computer and was commercially launched in November 2025. The trapped-ion system has 98 physical qubits and has been used in demonstrations involving 48 logical qubits.

Helios uses barium-137 ions as its physical qubits, with the ions moved between interaction zones where lasers are used to perform quantum operations and measurements. Quantinuum has also demonstrated 48 error-corrected logical qubits using the system's 98 physical qubits.

Logical qubits encode quantum information across physical qubits to reduce errors during computation, with quantum error correction requiring additional physical qubits to create and maintain them

Quantinuum reports an average two-qubit gate fidelity of 99.921% across Helios' physical qubits. Gate fidelity measures how accurately a quantum processor performs an operation, with higher fidelity corresponding to a lower rate of operational errors.

Linking quantum hardware with OCI infrastructure

Under the partnership, Helios will be deployed in a US-based OCI AI data center rather than being accessed as a separate external system. The companies said this setup is intended to connect the quantum system with OCI compute, networking, storage, identity, and data services.

The deployment is also intended to support workloads that combine quantum and conventional computing resources. Quantinuum and Oracle plan to explore applications that use quantum computing alongside GPUs, high-performance computing systems, and AI infrastructure.

Helios already supports workloads that combine quantum and classical computation. Quantinuum has integrated the system with GPU-based classical computing for real-time quantum error correction, where measurement data from the quantum processor is decoded by classical hardware before correction information is returned during the computation.

The companies identified materials research, drug development, logistics, energy, and financial modeling as areas they plan to examine. They also plan to broaden access to quantum computing for universities and research institutions.

"We believe the next phase of enterprise computing will be shaped by bringing quantum, AI, and high-performance computing together," Quantinuum President and CEO Rajeeb Hazra said. He said placing Helios within OCI would allow the companies to test hybrid workloads and enterprise applications with customers.

Oracle's planned quantum service is expected to include Quantinuum's software development tools as well as support for open-source frameworks used to build hybrid quantum-classical applications. Developers would be able to move between software simulation and execution on quantum hardware through the OCI environment.

"AI has changed what organizations can imagine, and we believe quantum computing can expand what they're able to solve," Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Executive Vice President Mahesh Thiagarajan said.

The companies also cited Helios' estimated system power draw as part of the planned hybrid computing setup. Quantinuum said Helios draws less than 1% of the power reported for some leading supercomputers, although quantum and classical systems perform different workloads and are not direct substitutes.

The Ellison Institute of Technology is among the organizations examining the use of quantum processors alongside existing computing hardware. Johannes Blaschke, head of scientific computing at the institute's GBI unit, said having both GPUs and quantum processing units available through OCI would reduce the need for researchers to operate separate hardware environments.

"As quantum computing moves closer to enterprise adoption, simplifying how organizations access and integrate quantum resources has become just as important as advancing the hardware itself," IDC Global Quantum Research Lead Heather West said.

Oracle plans to preview the OCI quantum service in the coming months. The service is expected to provide managed access to Helios and development tools for building and running quantum-classical workloads.