Qilimanjaro sells €1M DIY quantum computer kit
Get the Health newsletter
Daily health & science — research, biotech, public health, the studies worth knowing. Free.
- Qilimanjaro (Barcelona) created EduQit, a "flatpack furniture" DIY quantum computer kit that includes a superconducting chip, special refrigerator, radio/microwave control electronics, racks, and power cables
- EduQit comes with five qubits, costs around €1 million, and includes up to three months of training from Qilimanjaro researchers, with the system ready to run after at least 10 months of assembly work
- Rigetti already sells a small superconducting quantum computer starting at ~$900,000, but only the main chip and a few small components are included — comparable to buying a motherboard without a monitor or keyboard
- Google has said it aims to bring component costs down by a factor of 10 to get a single quantum machine below $1 billion, putting the EduQit price in context
- Qilimanjaro is targeting the many research institutions where quantum computing is currently out of reach, and explicitly wants to give the next generation of researchers direct build-and-run experience — what researcher Marta Estarellas likens to a quantum Raspberry Pi
- A quantum computer comparable to EduQit would have been competitive with the most advanced devices in top labs about a decade ago, underscoring how far the field has moved in the intervening years
Why it matters: At roughly €1 million, EduQit drops quantum computing from a club of tech giants and well-funded labs (Google is still targeting sub-$1-billion machines) to something a mid-sized university or national lab could plausibly buy, and gives students their first real option to build a machine rather than rent cloud time or run simulations.
