ESA's Earth Observation Research Centre (ESRIN) has installed its first quantum computer — Equal1's Bell-1, a 6-qubit silicon spin qubit system — at its data centre in Frascati, Italy. The system uses CMOS-compatible silicon spin qubits operating at 0.3 kelvin, allowing it to fit in a standard rack-mounted chassis drawing only 1.6 kW of power. It will be integrated with ESA's existing HPC infrastructure to form a hybrid quantum-classical testbed. Planned use cases include hybrid quantum neural networks for land use classification, satellite mission planning, and climate modelling. ESA Φ-lab aims to complete a pilot demonstration by end of 2026, with findings shared at a joint workshop with Equal1.
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