The Basque Country will host IBM's quantum computer, which will serve sectors such as energy and automotive.

IBM's 'System Two' quantum computer , which the Basque Country will host at the end of the year, will be "a magnet for talent." It could also serve multiple sectors, such as energy and the automotive industry , according to Miguel Ángel Arocena, manager of the Basque Science Foundation (Ikerbasque).

"We're convinced this will be a magnet for talent, investment, and industry. We want to create an ecosystem where we have training, innovation, and research at the heart of it," Arocena said at IBM's headquarters in Yorktown Heights, in upstate New York.

This week, Ikerbasque organized a visit to IBM's facilities in New York , where various media outlets had access to this device. It is the firm's first quantum computer, featuring the most powerful processor in Europe.

The manager stated that various sectors, including energy, banking, public administration, and healthcare, have already shown interest in this system . While it won't replace traditional computers, it will be able to perform operations that they are unable to execute.

Among other things, this computer will be able to process five decades of NASA satellite images , which will allow us to understand how territorial lines and methane clouds are moving, or how forest cover is being lost, said Mikel Díaz, director of innovation at IBM in Spain.

"All of this image processing is done with classic artificial intelligence, but this technology is limited," he told several media outlets.

This technology, which can solve important problems that are insoluble for classical computing, is also applicable to the development of drugs , materials, batteries, communication systems, and even fertilizers.

Díaz also highlighted that System Two will be able to model all protein combinations to determine the optimal fusion of these components, thus ensuring that they function "more efficiently for the human body."

Journalists attending the presentation were also able to see the enormous quantum computer, whose interior is kept at a temperature of -270 degrees Celsius and is an improvement over its previous version, System One, from 2019.

At the event, Adolfo Morais, the Basque Country's Deputy Minister of Science and Innovation, stated that the arrival of this system in the Basque Country is "recognition of a commitment that began in the 1980s to developing R&D in the Basque Country and which, over the last 25 years, has focused on research in quantum technologies."

Last March, the Basque Government and IBM announced in the Big Apple the arrival of this computer to the IBM-Euskadi Quantum Computational Center in San Sebastián, where the development of quantum technologies will be carried out.

This infrastructure will be key to the development of the Basque Quantum strategy , in which IBM, the Basque Government, and the three Basque regional councils are participating. The goal is to make the Basque Country a world leader in quantum computing.