November 9, 2026 marks the first time photonic computing is being offered commercially in bare metal server environments, as Q.ANT and IONOS launch a pilot program giving developers access to real photonic processors. The collaboration allows software creators to move beyond simulation and run AI workloads on Q.ANT’s hardware via IONOS’s infrastructure, potentially building leaner, faster models as AI costs continue to rise, the company says.

“Promising computing technologies from Europe need sovereign European infrastructure to make the leap into business use,” said Achim Weiss, CEO of IONOS, as the program hosts Q.ANT’s processor within a German data center under German jurisdiction.

IONOS Bare Metal Access Enables Photonic Processor Evaluation

Approved applicants will gain access to Q.ANT’s second-generation Native Processing Unit (NPU) via a bare metal server located in a German IONOS data center, allowing them to run and evaluate their own workloads with their own data and software starting in November 2026. This access represents a critical step in validating photonic computing’s potential beyond high-performance computing environments, as Q.ANT’s processors have already undergone evaluation at the Leibniz Supercomputing Centre and the Jülich Supercomputing Centre.

The pilot program, a collaboration between Q.ANT and IONOS, is free of charge to a limited number of selected participants who demonstrate both a concrete use case and the technical expertise to manage a bare metal server independently, according to the company. The program’s focus extends beyond simply running existing AI models. Participants are encouraged to explore new algorithms and AI architectures that use the NPU’s unique ability to compute complex nonlinear functions natively in light.

Traditional CMOS-based chips must break down these functions into sequential digital steps, a process that can be resource-intensive; Q.ANT’s approach aims to deliver comparable or improved results with fewer parameters, operations and overall resources. This efficiency is particularly relevant as the cost of running increasingly complex AI workloads becomes a limiting factor in their scalability, a challenge Q.ANT’s CEO addresses directly.

“This matters because the conversations around AI are shifting from what the models can do to what it costs to run them,” said Dr. Michael Förtsch, Founder and CEO of Q.ANT. “Photonic computing can make the next generation of AI models leaner: complex functions that inflate digital models can be computed with fewer data and parameters with light, resulting in less energy requirements for the same workloads.” IONOS’s role in the pilot extends beyond providing infrastructure. The company is also ensuring data sovereignty for participating customers.

The program’s systems are hosted within IONOS’s ISO 27001 certified data centers in Germany, providing European data residency for all workloads. This commitment to sovereign infrastructure is a key component of the collaboration, according to IONOS’s CEO. The pilot program is designed to identify areas where photonic processing offers the greatest advantages, providing real-world validation needed for broader commercial deployment. Potential evaluation areas include industrial image processing, time-series prediction, scientific simulation and robotics, all operations particularly well-suited to Q.ANT’s architecture.

Participants will receive direct support from both Q.ANT and IONOS, including technical onboarding, project support and workload review, culminating in a final workshop to evaluate results and performance metrics. “A new computing architecture only becomes commercially relevant when customers can test it against the workloads that matter to them,” Dr. Förtsch explained.

“When we launched our SDK, developers could begin building applications for photonic computing. Now, with IONOS, they can take their work and run those applications on the real processor.” Feedback gathered during the pilot will directly inform further development of Q.ANT’s processor and software stack, solidifying the path toward a commercially viable photonic computing ecosystem.