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South Korea Sets Quantum Link for 614-PFLOP Hangang
South Korea has launched Hangang, a national supercomputer with a theoretical peak of 614 petaflops, and plans to link it with a 100-qubit IonQ Tempo system. KISTI expects the quantum computer to arrive around May 2027, extending access to
Quantum.world Team · Written with AI · fact-checked ·
614 petaflops, with a quantum system planned
South Korea’s new Hangang supercomputer has a theoretical peak performance of 614 petaflops—614 quadrillion operations per second—and the government plans to connect it with a quantum computer in 2027. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) marked Hangang’s launch on November 2 in Daejeon; official user service is scheduled to begin December 16. The quantum link is a separate, longer-term step, not a capability available at launch.
KISTI’s selected quantum system is IonQ’s 100-qubit Tempo, which the two organizations agreed to integrate with Hangang on site. KISTI says the arrangement will support a hybrid quantum-classical research service for researchers, universities and industry. DongA Science reports that KISTI expects to introduce the quantum computer around May 2027; the government’s broader target, reported by Seoul Economic Daily, is to link the systems in the first half of next year.
IonQ’s Tempo will join KISTI’s flagship system
The agreement makes Hangang the classical-computing side of a planned hybrid installation. IonQ says its Tempo system will connect to the supercomputer through a secure private-cloud environment, giving remote access to South Korean researchers, universities and enterprise users. KISTI will operate the quantum service and research platform, with Megazone Cloud named as a project partner.
IonQ and KISTI announced the finalized agreement on December 23, 2025. KISTI’s announcement describes the 100-qubit system as part of the institute’s sixth-generation national supercomputer project and calls the arrangement Korea’s first on-site hybrid quantum-classical computing environment. The quantum hardware is not part of Hangang’s 614-petaflop figure: that number describes the supercomputer’s theoretical peak, not a combined quantum-classical benchmark.
Different processors, different jobs
KISTI’s stated case for linking the machines rests on complementary workloads. A conventional supercomputer can perform large calculations quickly and accurately, while quantum processors may help explore combinations in certain optimization problems. The connection does not mean that every scientific calculation will run faster, or that the quantum system replaces Hangang’s CPUs and GPUs.
“Supercomputers calculate very quickly but take a long time to optimize, or find the right path, while quantum computers are slow and error-prone in calculation but fast at optimization,” Lee Sik, KISTI president, told Seoul Economic Daily. The outlet reported Lee’s explanation as part of its November 2 coverage of the launch. He said the goal is to connect the systems so their strengths can offset one another.
Researchers get Hangang before the quantum link
Hangang replaces Nurion, South Korea’s fifth national supercomputer, introduced in 2018. It contains 8,496 GPUs, including Nvidia GH200 accelerators, and 9,936 CPUs; its theoretical peak is 24 times Nurion’s, with 205 petabytes of storage. The ministry expects the system to place among the world’s top 10 in the next TOP500 ranking, but that standing depends on the benchmark results submitted to the list.
During its trial period, KISTI has been taking applications from research users ahead of the December service date. The government’s resource plan allocates 55% of Hangang’s computing capacity to research and development, 30% to national strategic projects and 15% to industrial innovation. Those allocations give universities, public research institutes and companies access to the classical system while the quantum installation remains in preparation.
Drug design is one proposed use
DongA Science describes a possible drug-development workflow: a quantum computer could search candidate protein structures for promising matches, then Hangang could calculate binding energies for selected candidates. That is an example of how the institutions might divide a research task, not a demonstrated result from the planned installation. The agreement and KISTI’s timeline establish the system’s intended deployment; they do not yet show which applications will benefit or by how much.
Hangang’s official service is due to start December 16, while KISTI expects the quantum system around May 2027. The next concrete milestone is whether the on-site Tempo installation meets that schedule and becomes accessible through the planned research service.