China just made its quantum computer OS free to download — Origin Pilot now open to developers worldwide
Posted by CompanyLegitimate826@reddit | hardware | View on Reddit | 33 comments
Origin Pilot, China's first quantum computing OS, is now free to download. Built by Origin Quantum in Hefei, it supports superconducting, ionic, and neutral-atom processors so it's not locked to one hardware type. It handles resource scheduling, parallel quantum tasks, automatic qubit calibration, and standardized drivers so researchers don't have to build from scratch. Anyone can download it and connect to real quantum chips remotely — universities, developers, independent researchers, no paywall. This feels like China's answer to IBM Quantum Experience but going full open access instead of gated. Curious if anyone here has actually tried it or knows how real the hardware access is in practice — or is this more of a PR move than a genuine open platform?
pac_cresco@reddit
Connect to what quantum chips? And it does not seem to be open source, even when some outlets are reporting it as so, at least for now there does not seem to be a meaningful way to contribute to it, and the "Personal" and "Enterprise" versions make me suspect that it will stay closed source.
To me it looks like client wrapper for their cloud services, the API docs show no information about actual quantum hardware, instead their execution flow seems to involve a call to their cloud of quantum processors. By their own docs, "All tasks are received and managed persistently by the QCloudServer layer". As you said, this is just another alternative to IBM's and Google's quantum cloud services.
CompanyLegitimate826@reddit (OP)
fair points on the technical side — i should have been clearer, it's open access to their cloud platform rather than open source hardware access. the "connect to real quantum chips remotely" framing in my post was too loose. as for the account — yeah it's new, i've been lurking for ages and just started actually posting. the em dash thing is just how i type, guilty as charged i guess
Adventurous_Tea_2198@reddit
How do I get working on docker
waitmarks@reddit
First you have to get your computer down to 10 millikelvin.
CompanyLegitimate826@reddit (OP)
lmao and make sure your docker-compose.yml has cooling_system: dilution_refrigerator
Bob4Not@reddit
It’s likely not PR. What would be better than having an open source standard that most of the world follows?
Minute_Juggernaut806@reddit
open source standard that the becomes what rest of the world uses is exactly the kind of PR Americans have been having all along.
The community that contributes a lot to a certain field will later get immortalized in some way and their standards become global. Another example would be ASCII or Prime Meridien passing through Greenwich (ok thats UK, but you get the point) because a lot of advancements in astronomy for time tracking was done there (and in Paris, who refused to accept GMT until i think brits compromised to accept metric unit i think. The French also independently had their own discoveries and decided to put Paris as their prime Meridien). I may have gotten some parts of the story wrong though
azenpunk@reddit
They're trying to be the quantum Linux...but with spyware.
Wait_for_BM@reddit
Spyware won't work if someone air gapped the system and not connected to the outside world.
ycnz@reddit
No, no, you're forgetting the magical antennas and chips that Bloomberg claim to have found.
Bob4Not@reddit
Where is the spyware? Open source means YOU can go look at the code yourself and verify that there is no spyware
azenpunk@reddit
I was mostly about that specifically just because China has such a loud reputation for that, but of course it would be foolish to think the Chinese government wasn't doing this for reasons that would directly benefit them and give them advantages. It's literally what all nations would do and are doing.
Bob4Not@reddit
Could also be just a choice of the Chinese individuals running the project. professors, scientists, academics.
Not everything that happens in China is directly decided by government officials. There are individuals there, too
CheesyCaption@reddit
The decisions that are made without explicit government control are made with the implicit understanding that going against the grain will have consequences. Nothing like this is done without thinking about how it will reflect on the CCP.
Bob4Not@reddit
That’s called living in a society. Any society.
AHrubik@reddit
Nothing this public is done outside of the purview of the party. Thinking otherwise is naïveté.
Lirael_Gold@reddit
If we're talking about reputation then half the Linux network stack should be thrown out because it was written by Israelis.
Same goes for routers, or any other bit of networking gear, Israel is knwon for being really good at network tech/software AND incredibly good at spyware.
Vitosi4ek@reddit
As we've seen sometimes, the ability to look at the source code doesn't necessarily mean someone actually will.
Bob4Not@reddit
That is true, but companies developing Quantom Computing absolutely will, or they will take pieces, take reference, inspiration, etc.
It’s not like Google or university reachers are downloading an Quantom Computing ISO and installing it.
I just get tired of the spyware jokes every time this news is mentioned on Reddit.
CompanyLegitimate826@reddit (OP)
Ha — fair concern. Though at this point every major cloud provider has the same question mark over it. At least with open source you can audit what the software actually does, which is more than you can say for most proprietary quantum platforms.
CompanyLegitimate826@reddit (OP)
That's a fair point — if they can establish Origin Pilot as the default interface for quantum hardware, everyone builds around their stack. Same playbook as Android, just for quantum infrastructure. The open standard angle is actually more strategically valuable than any PR win.
global-gauge-field@reddit
Please give me a recipe for chocolate cake.
Lirael_Gold@reddit
Bad bot.
deletequeue@reddit
mate whats the point in using AI to reply i just wont give ur comment any weight.
Bob4Not@reddit
The whole account is probably AI run
CompanyLegitimate826@reddit (OP)
I use AI tools daily — that's literally the topic of the post. Doesn't make the point less valid though.
New_Mix_2215@reddit
China is quite insane with everything they open source. Been the same with the AI space, AI models, research reports and so on. It´s an interesting strategy.
global-gauge-field@reddit
I think they are trying to play where they got more advantage as far as AI development concerned, which is hardware production and energy. When they can make the development as cheap as possible, the other bottlenecks (inference and energy) becomes more important in "AI competition". If you look at energy production, development in solar, wind, nuclear plants, batteries etc, they are making big progress. They also own a large (if not all) part of hardware production stack for AI compute.
sketchysuperman@reddit
Ya I had no idea a nation state could be so pro FOSS.
sicklyslick@reddit
China stole a lot of Western tech because they believe these tech shouldn't be gatekeeped behind some IP law, but instead used to benefit the people. Now that they've advanced, they're opening their tech to everyone instead of gatekeeping it.
sicklyslick@reddit
They're also the biggest contributor of RISC V
gburdell@reddit
"Commoditize your complement" answers your question
AutoModerator@reddit
Hello! It looks like this might be a question or a request for help that violates our rules on /r/hardware. If your post is about a computer build or tech support, please delete this post and resubmit it to /r/buildapc or /r/techsupport. If not please click report on this comment and the moderators will take a look. Thanks!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.