Alice & Bob and STFC Hartree Centre Integrate Quantum Computers in Standard HPC Workflow & Job Scheduling Software SLURM

New access to widely used supercomputer resource management infrastructure makes it easier for researchers to incorporate cat qubits into standard workflows

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM, November 6, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Alice & Bob, a global leader in the race for fault-tolerant quantum computing, today announced the software integration of their future QPUs with high-performance computing (HPC) environments via SLURM, the world’s most widely used workload management system, present in 60% of the world’s top supercomputers.

Developed in collaboration with the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Hartree Centre through the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI), this integration makes Alice & Bob’s technology compatible with existing HPC workflows, marking the first time cat-qubit technology is adapted for seamless scheduling and execution within standard HPC resource management frameworks.

SLURM allocates computing resources and schedules jobs to run efficiently, managing queues of pending tasks and deciding which resources – CPUs, GPUs, and in the future, QPUs – to use and how much of each resource should be leveraged to maximize throughput.

“Enabling quantum processors to be scheduled and used just like any other HPC resource is a foundational pillar of impactful hybrid quantum-classical integration,” said Stefano Mensa, Advanced Computing and Emerging Technologies Group Leader at The Hartree Centre. “This work makes early fault-tolerant quantum computing practical and accessible for future scientific and industrial applications.”

This partnership also represents a key part of a larger project to develop open-source tools and frameworks that enable quantum and classical compute architectures to operate together at scale, a necessary step for scientific discovery and industry use cases.

“This collaboration facilitates deployment of our machines for the HPC community as well as easier access for end users,” said Théau Peronnin, CEO of Alice & Bob. “Partnering with the world-class experts at the Hartree Centre ensures this integration aligns with how end users actually run workloads, accelerating adoption of our technology.”

“Only a few quantum hardware developers in the world have announced SLURM integration,” said Philippe Muller, VP of Business and Revenue at Alice & Bob. “Our collaboration with the Hartree Centre, a leading applied HPC centre, sets us apart by targeting real HPC user environments and the scheduler used by most of the world’s top supercomputers.”

The strategic collaboration also aims to expand accessibility for thousands of researchers, as SLURM now provides open-source, fault-tolerant, and highly scalable cluster management and job scheduling for HPC workloads that integrate cat-qubit processors.

"This work addresses a critical gap between standalone quantum hardware and real applications,” said Ariana Torres-Knoop, Quantum Computing Lead at SURF, the IT cooperative of Dutch education and research institutions which provides high-performance data processing and cloud computing environments. “The collaborative effort is essential for integrating hybrid quantum–classical workflows into operational HPC environments.”

In a recent report, Alice & Bob detailed how quantum computing will accelerate HPC workloads within the next 5 years. The company’s strategic partnership with the Hartree Centre marks a significant milestone toward this goal through the implementation of a key enabling technology for practical integration.

About STFC Hartree Centre
The Hartree Centre helps UK businesses and public sector organisations to explore and adopt supercomputing, data science, cloud, quantum and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for enhanced productivity, smarter innovation and economic growth.
Backed by UK Government funding and strategic industry partnerships, the Hartree Centre is home to some of the most advanced digital technologies and experts in the UK.
As part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council and UK Research and Innovation, the Hartree Centre builds on a wealth of established scientific heritage and a network of international expertise, helping the UK to stay at the forefront of digital innovation.
https://www.hartree.stfc.ac.uk/

About Alice & Bob     
Alice & Bob is a quantum computing company based in Paris and Boston whose goal is to create the first universal, fault-tolerant quantum computer. Founded in 2020, Alice & Bob has raised €130 million in funding, hired over 150 employees and demonstrated experimental results surpassing those of technology giants such as Google or IBM.

Advised by Nobel Prize-winning researchers, Alice & Bob specializes in cat qubits, a technology developed by the company's founders and later adopted by Amazon. Demonstrating the power of its cat architecture, Alice & Bob recently showed that it could reduce the hardware requirements for building a useful large-scale quantum computer by up to 200 times compared with competing approaches. Follow Alice & Bob on LinkedIn, X or YouTube, visit their website www.alice-bob.com, or join The Cat Tree on Slack to learn more.

Christian Balzora
HKA Marketing Communications
christian@hkamarcom.com