SeQuenC

Sovereignty for quantum solutions in the cloud

© Project SeQuenC

Project description
In order to leverage the potential of quantum computing, it is of central importance to enable the German economy to use quantum resources in Germany in a legally secure and sovereign manner. The SeQuenC project enables this by building a standards-based technology stack for a German quantum cloud with extensible connections of quantum computers. In particular, this ensures that quantum parts are also processed under German jurisdiction. The SeQuenC platform is thus intended to provide a Gaia-X-compliant cloud platform for quantum software that will enable the monetization of quantum services and quantum software and offer great potential for research, business and industry.

Challenge and innovation
The focus is on the legally secure and sovereign development, operation and use of quantum services in the German and European legal space. This is done by developing the necessary infrastructure, in particular for the provision of an overall system for authorized access to existing quantum hardware. The creation and operation of hybrid quantum software is ensured on the basis of extensions to existing workflow and provisioning technologies and corresponding standards, but also through the integration of API management.

The developed technology stack also enables the exploitation of quantum solutions as consumable services. Thus, quantum benefits can be easily integrated into existing software. This provision of quantum solutions "as a service" opens up new marketing and exploitation perspectives for developers of quantum solutions, but also for consumers of quantum solutions without dedicated skills and expertise in the quantum environment, such as SMEs.

Solution approach
The SeQuenC project will build a standards-based technology stack based on the German data protection and sovereignty framework. Taking into account the Gaia-X Federation Services serves as a prerequisite for Gaia-X compliance and easy porting to other cloud infrastructures. The stack is complemented by an integrated orchestration and provisioning platform with API management and monetization component for quantum services. Embedding into existing cloud offerings is done via standard APIs, especially for operational tooling, customer support and billing support systems (payment, metering, etc.). Extended semantic descriptions of the services and SeQuenC platform components based on the semantic approaches from Gaia-X and the existing semantic knowledge models in PlanQK, facilitate on the one hand the integration with PlanQK and enable on the other hand higher level Gaia-X based services, such as service search, selection and recommendation as well as semantic workflow descriptions.

Consortium
IONOS SE, Universität Stuttgart, QMware, Fraunhofer FOKUS

Duration
August 2022 – July 2025

Budget
Total cost: € 4.5 million
Funding volume: € 3.0 million