The machine is now officially online and stationed at the University of Osaka’s Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology.

This kit went live on 28 July and, unlike earlier systems that relied on imported parts, everything inside this one is stamped Made in Japan.

In a statement, the University of Osaka said the system also relies an open-source platform dubbed the Open Quantum Toolchain for Operators and Users, or OQTOPUS if you like your acronyms with a Insalata di Polpo theme.

At the heart of it all is a superconducting qubit chip developed at the Japanese research outfit RIKEN. This chip needs to be chilled to temperatures close to minus 273.15 degrees Celsius to do anything useful, because superconducting qubits only behave when they're practically frozen solid.

Holding the whole contraption together is the chandelier, the central structure that crams in the chip package from Seiken, magnetic shielding, infrared and bandpass filters, a low-noise amplifier, and a jungle of cables.

It sits in a specialised dilution fridge built to reach those absurdly low temperatures. There’s a pulse tube refrigerator, power controller and a low-noise power supply to keep the thing steady.

OQTOPUS, meanwhile, provides everything needed to run the show. It has a core engine, cloud module and a graphical user interface so operators can work without writing lines of quantum gibberish. It’s been built to sit on top of the QPU and control hardware, letting researchers get on with the job of doing something useful.

Japan’s new system got its first outing during Expo 2025 in Osaka. At the event, organisers let punters connect remotely via the cloud to run basic quantum code. There were interactive displays showing off phenomena like quantum entanglement for the crowds who prefer their physics with flashing lights.

Sadly it cannot run Crysis.