2026: Access to the VLQ Quantum Computer

Danish universities can apply.  

For universities, the following conditions apply:  

Professors, associate professors, and assistant professors can apply for themselves and also on behalf of post docs, PhDs and master’s thesis students.  

To promote the use of quantum resources in all scientific fields, DeiC has pre-reserved 10% of the offered resources for possible applications from the area of social sciences and humanities (SSH). If no qualified applications are received, the resources will be transferred to the overall pool. 

The amount you may request depends on the access channel:

• VLQ sandbox access: You may request up to 10% of Denmark’s total VLQ QPU allocation. The sandbox is intended for smaller-scale testing, exploratory, pilot and preparatory activities.
• Competitive VLQ call: You may request more than 10% and up to 70% of Denmark’s total VLQ QPU allocation.
• Requests above 70%: These are not considered under the DeiC call. Applicants with substantially larger resource needs are encouraged to seek access through EuroHPC JU.

Denmark currently receives a quarterly distributed allocation of approximately 531,518 QPU seconds per year. This corresponds to approximately:

• 10%: 53,152 QPU seconds
• 70%: 372,063 QPU seconds

Applicants should request only the amount needed for the proposed project and provide a quarterly QPU budget for Q1–Q4 explaining how the requested resources are expected to be used.

First, you must fill out the request form for consulting with experts on quantum computing at DeiC. Then, we will respond to your request via e-mail to answer your questions and gather more information. Finally, if more in-depth follow-up is necessary, we will set up a virtual meeting on Zoom.

We can enter into a dialogue about a wide range of topics, from which areas of your project quantum computing might impact to comparing the various quantum computing hardware providers and quantum simulators. We can direct you to a plethora of resources on the various libraries and programming languages used in the quantum software development and help you better understand the process of transpiling, testing, and optimizing implementations of quantum algorithms. 

In the particular case of the VLQ computer, we can provide you with information about the special features of the machine and guide you through accessing it either from the UCloud system or directly from the dedicated IT4I user portal.   

Small-scale projects that are granted access through the Sandbox system will receive a formal evaluation. The review process takes 1-2 weeks.  

Large-scale projects will undergo two distinct review stages: an internal eligibility and compliance screening by DeiC on 29 September, followed by a competitive scientific review process starting on 6 October. The scientific evaluation may take up to six weeks.

In the case of a small number of competitive applications (less than 10), the period of scientific assessment may be shortened. 

 All applications will receive a first screening from the technical staff of DeiC´s quantum department to assess all formal requirements, eligibility conditions and completeness of the required documentation. DeiC may request additional information from applicants where necessary to complete the screening.  

 
Competitive applications that meet the formal criteria will then be examined by the E-resource evaluation committee.  The E-resource Committee has been appointed by DeiC's Board of Directors to evaluate the scientific eligibility of the requests for HPC and quantum computing resources (put link to e-resource committee page). In case of a small number of applications (less than 10), a sub-committee will be appointed for the evaluation. 

Applicants should carefully estimate the total amount of QPU resources required for the proposed project. As a reference, the hosting site recommends using 400 μs (0.4 ms) per shot as a conservative worst-case estimate. Based on this assumption, executing a single circuit with 10,000 shots would consume approximately 4 QPU seconds.

Every job submission carries an overhead of 3 to 15 seconds of latency — covering queuing, job scheduling, and result retrieval. This is wall-clock time you will observe, but it does not appear in your consumption bill.
 

IT4Innovations National Supercomputing Center, as the VLQ hosting site, has provided guidance to support estimation of the required QPU resources, see here.