IONOS and Q.ANT
Photonics Computing for European AI Sovereignty
Q.ANT and IONOS aim to work together to strengthen Europe’s technological leadership in the AI sector and better address the growing energy and performance demands of AI workloads using Q.ANT’s photon-based processors.
Q.ANT and IONOS, a European digitalization partner for small and medium-sized enterprises, have thus laid the groundwork for the first commercial use of Q.ANT’s Native Processing Unit (NPU) and have set themselves the goal of jointly strengthening Europe’s technological sovereignty in the AI sector and reducing the growing energy and performance demands of AI workloads with the help of Q.ANT’s photon-based processors. The two companies agreed to the strategic partnership on the sidelines of the re:publica 2026 digital conference in Berlin. They plan to unveil their first joint systems for next-generation AI and HPC applications in the cloud as early as this summer.
Innovation “Made in Europe”
At a time when AI infrastructures are increasingly dominated by non-European technology conglomerates, IONOS and Q.ANT aim to send a clear signal for innovation “Made in Europe.” The partnership combines IONOS’s expertise in building and operating sovereign cloud and AI infrastructures with Q.ANT’s developments in the field of innovative processor technologies.
European Hardware for Europe
Debates on digital sovereignty tend to focus on software and platform issues. The underlying computing and processor infrastructure is often overlooked. The partnership between IONOS and Q.ANT demonstrates that Europe can also forge its own path at the hardware level. Light-based processors for AI applications offer a sustainable and sovereign alternative to conventional chip architectures – a crucial building block for technological independence across the entire value chain. Q.ANT demonstrates that photonic processors can be manufactured entirely within the European Union. They also enable independent software stacks, and the processors’ significantly reduced energy consumption alleviates the strain on power grids in the EU.
Photonics processors are ready for industrialization
The partnership with IONOS is an important step for Q.ANT toward the industrialization of its photonics processors. The collaboration opens the door for the first-ever deployment of Q.ANT’s Native Processing Servers (NPS) in commercial data centers. In scientific data centers, Q.ANT’s NPSs are already in use at the high-performance computing centers at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre (LRZ) in Munich and at the Jülich Research Centre.
“Digital sovereignty is not an abstract vision, but an economic necessity for Europe,” emphasizes Dr. Andreas Nauerz, Chief Product Officer at IONOS. “With Q.ANT, we have a partner that is rethinking computing and thereby making the further scaling of AI infrastructures possible – with a fully sovereign AI stack. Together, we can offer users access to innovative AI technologies based on European values such as data protection, transparency, and technological self-determination.”
“Our technology sets entirely new standards in AI and high-performance computing,” says Dr. Michael Förtsch, CEO of Q.ANT. “Photonics chips can really showcase their strengths over traditional GPUs in AI – through higher computing power and significantly reduced energy consumption. Through our partnership with IONOS, we are now taking a decisive step toward the commercialization and industrialization of our technology – and have found the ideal partner for this in IONOS.”
