Q.ANT and IONOS open a pilot for running AI models on photonic processors in a German cloud

Nov 10, 2026
Selected developers get free access to Q.ANT's second-generation photonic NPU through IONOS bare metal servers in Germany from November 2026.

Q.ANT and IONOS launched a pilot that gives selected developers access to physical photonic processors through bare metal servers in Germany, Q.ANT said on 9 November. The free program begins in November 2026 and uses Q.ANT's second-generation Native Processing Unit.

Participants can run their own AI models, data and software on dedicated hardware. The program will test workloads involving matrix multiplication and nonlinear mathematical functions, including industrial image processing, time series prediction, scientific simulation and robotics.

Applicants must submit a specific use case and be able to administer a bare metal server independently. Q.ANT will provide technical onboarding, workload reviews and a final performance workshop, while IONOS supports the server infrastructure in a German data center. "Promising computing technologies from Europe need sovereign European infrastructure to make the leap into business use," said IONOS CEO Achim Weiss.

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