19 November 2025

IQM’s launch of its Halocene quantum computer last week didn’t feel like another chapter in the race for bigger qubit counts that often dominates quantum computing headlines. It felt like a correction. Rather than promising miracles, the Finnish quantum-hardware company introduced Halocene as a platform built to confront the problem everyone in the field quietly acknowledges: the fragile, error-prone nature of today’s superconducting qubits.

Quantum computers remain extraordinary yet exasperating machines. Their qubits react to microscopic disturbances — shifts in temperature, stray electromagnetic fields, even tiny vibrations. These fluctuations cause errors that disrupt computations long before they reach any meaningful scale. The industry has spent the past decade working within this “NISQ” reality — the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era — where quantum algorithms must be carefully shortened, stabilised and error-mitigated. To reach genuinely useful performance, researchers need fault-tolerant quantum computing, where errors are detected and corrected continuously. But no one has yet built a commercial system that can do this.

A platform built for error correction

Halocene is IQM’s attempt to move the field closer. It is positioned not as a finished product but as a quantum error-correction research platform. The first model — expected to be commercially available by the end of 2026 — features a 150-qubit superconducting processor powered by IQM’s “Crystal” QPU. The company is targeting around 99.7% two-qubit gate fidelity, a crucial benchmark for achieving practical quantum error correction. The Halocene line is intended to scale toward 1,000 qubits in later generations, though IQM is careful to frame this as a long-term roadmap rather than an imminent milestone.

What truly distinguishes Halocene, however, is its philosophy: it is open, modular, and designed for on-premises deployment. Rather than accessing a black-box quantum service through the cloud, researchers can install Halocene inside their own facilities — universities, national labs, supercomputing centres and industrial R&D units. That physical access makes a significant difference. It enables scientists to fine-tune calibration routines, manipulate pulse sequences, and explore error-correction strategies at every layer of the quantum computing stack. IQM says early versions will support experiments with up to five logical qubits — a small number, but a meaningful step toward stable, error-corrected computation.

Finland’s unlikely quantum powerhouse

This approach reflects IQM’s unusual position in the global quantum hardware landscape. Since spinning out of Aalto University and VTT in 2018, the company has resisted the cloud-only model adopted by many US players. Instead, IQM built a reputation around delivering full-stack, on-premises systems. Today it operates what it describes as Europe’s only private quantum-chip fabrication facility, manufacturing superconducting processors and assembling complete quantum computers under one roof in Espoo, Finland. Earlier this year, IQM said it had delivered more on-premises quantum computers in the previous 12 months than any other manufacturer — a claim that speaks to the company’s hands-on, hardware-first philosophy.

Manufacturing capability has become a competitive advantage in Europe’s quantum-technology ecosystem. Building quantum chips at scale is notoriously challenging: fabrication yields are low, materials are finicky, and every design revision risks introducing new error pathways. While Europe has historically struggled to match the semiconductor firepower of the US and China, quantum offers a fresh opportunity. IQM’s presence in Espoo, within Finland’s growing deep-tech corridor, has become strategically significant — not least as governments and industries look for reliable European suppliers of advanced computing infrastructure.

Shifting from qubit races to real engineering

Halocene’s arrival also signals a shift in how the global quantum computing industry measures progress. For years, qubit counts were the metric used to declare a breakthrough. But researchers increasingly recognise that adding more qubits simply magnifies the system’s noise. The real challenge — and the future competitive frontier — lies in improving coherence time, stabilising control electronics, enhancing qubit connectivity, and developing workable error-correction codes. In that context, Halocene feels aligned with a more mature, sober understanding of what it will take to make quantum computers commercially relevant.

Why error correction matters far beyond academia

That shift matters far beyond academic interest. Government programmes in Europe, the US and Asia are now investing heavily in quantum computing testbeds, and error-correction-capable hardware will shape national research priorities for years to come. Industries hoping to benefit from quantum computing — pharmaceuticals, chemicals, energy, logistics and advanced materials — depend on long, stable quantum computations. Modelling new molecules, designing catalysts, or simulating complex materials requires the kind of robust, logical-qubit operations that only error-corrected machines can provide. Without that foundation, the most celebrated quantum-computing use cases will remain aspirational.

A research tool for the long road ahead

Halocene won’t solve those problems by itself, but it does provide the environment in which they can be addressed seriously. By giving researchers the ability to manipulate every layer of the hardware and software stack — rather than abstracting everything behind proprietary cloud interfaces — IQM is betting that the next breakthroughs in fault-tolerant quantum computing will emerge from labs with access to highly configurable, deeply transparent hardware.

Whether IQM’s approach will define the next phase of the industry is an open question. Other architectures — ion traps, photonic qubits, neutral atoms — each offer their own paths toward scalability. Even within superconducting qubits, engineering fault-tolerant systems will require significant innovation and long-term investment. But what makes Halocene compelling is its honesty. It’s a machine built not to dazzle, but to help researchers wrestle with the hardest, least glamorous problems in the field.

A sober step toward a fault-tolerant future

If the quantum era truly arrives — not as a marketing slogan but as real, reliable computing infrastructure — it will be due to the steady, meticulous progress that platforms like Halocene make possible. IQM has taken a step that feels both ambitious and grounded: a product designed for researchers, not hype cycles, and aimed squarely at the engineering reality that stands between today’s noisy devices and tomorrow’s fault-tolerant machines.