# A European Benchmarking Framework for hybrid quantum-classical computing
EUACC page: https://www.euacc.ai/calls/HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05-03
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## Public content

**topic id:** HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05-03
**call id:** HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05
**title:** A European Benchmarking Framework for hybrid quantum-classical computing
**programme:** Horizon Europe
**cluster:** EUROHPC
**status:** closed
**deadline date:** 2026-04-14T00:00:00+00:00
**deadline model:** single-stage
**start date:** 2025-12-11T00:00:00+00:00
**url:** https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05-03
**description:** Expected Outcome:
• Enhanced evidence-based decision making through comprehensive system comparison that improves the procurement process for quantum-accelerated supercomputers (hybrid HPC-QC). This will enable more informed choices regarding the acquisition of new systems and upgrades of existing ones
• Overall improved operation and fine-tuning of hybrid HPC-QC systems leading to improved performance, throughput and energy optimization, and improved end-user experience
• Enhancing the competitiveness of EU quantum suppliers through transparent benchmarking of industrially relevant workflows
• A unified, extensible and well-documented benchmarking framework to easily accommodate new, community-contributed benchmarks with common standards, versioning and control
• A well-maintained and continuously updated benchmarking suite for QC- and hybrid HPC-QC workflows with open-source reference implementations for every benchmark, SDK-agnostic specifications and sample datasets
• Active contributions to European and global standardisation on QC-, and hybrid HPC-QC benchmarking, certification and sustainability via standardisation bodies such as IEEE P7130/P7131, CEN-CENELEC JTC22-WG3, IEC/ISO JTC3 etc.
 Scope:
A.) Development of a benchmarking framework addressing the following aspects:
• offer a fine grained and fair comparison methodology among different systems and integration approaches, i.e. all benchmarks, benchmark run rules[1] and benchmark submission rules must be designed to ensure reproducibility, repeatability and replicability of metrics on the same system, ensuring fairness and comparability of metrics across different systems
• define and continuously update a precise and relevant performance metrics catalogue
• standardise all benchmarking input- and output formats
• collect and report all benchmarking results while offering statistically sound result analyses
• ensure that all benchmarks are executable on the respective target environment(s)
• offer a standardized structured workflow capturing and streamlining the entire benchmarking process
• offer a standardised repository with transparent version control
• provide at least one reference implementation based on an EU SDK for each benchmark
• is of production-quality and ready to assess all of EuroHPC’s QC- and hybrid HPC-QC systems
• provide all required templates with relevant input data to properly execute the benchmarking suite on every EuroHPC system.
 The benchmarking framework along with its workflows will be realised in a software implementation that offers to the end-user a dynamic workspace for the entire workflow.
B.) Establishing a comprehensive QC- and hybrid HPC-QC benchmarking suite utilizing the framework developed in the first objective. This benchmarking suite, with its associated performance metrics, will be designed to measure and assess the performance of QC- and hybrid HPC-QC systems.
The envisioned benchmarking suite is expected to:
• be generally hardware agnostic, enabling cross-device verification (e.g. via entangled-state comparisons, or distributed inner-product tests)
• provide thorough documentation for developers and end-users
• develop novel hybrid HPC-QC benchmarks within the following three key areas: • Throughput: capturing true end-to-end performance including queue-to-result latency, provisioning delays and data movement overhead
• Latency: queue-to-solution time, end-to-end (i.e. submission-to-result)
• Energy: per-shot energy, cryogenic overhead, control-electronics draw, classic-compute share, energy-to-solution (incl. all contributions, i.e. quantum-core, cryogenic, control electronics, classical compute)
 
• catalogue relevant, well-established QC benchmarks from across the entire software stack, e.g.: • Component level/ Gate level: gate fidelities, connectivity, energy-state relaxation time, coherence (T1/T2), randomized benchmarking (RB), cross-talk RB, error-per-layered-gate (EPLG), logical-error rate, logical error scaling (Λ)
• System level: Clifford-volume, cross-entropy (XEB), CLOPS/ rQOPS, MegaQuOp, GHZ-state fidelity (single shot read-out)
• Software/ Compiler level: error-syndrome mapping, decoding-throughput metrics, quantum compilation volumetric benchmarks
• Application layer: VQE, QAOA, MaxCut, Q-Score, quantum-enhanced ML, Monte Carlo sampling, workload-specific benchmarks, quantum application score
 
• support of both noisy-intermediate-scale-quantum (NISQ) and fault-tolerant-quantum-computing (FTQC) regimes (e.g. logical-error rates, logical-clock rate, decoding throughput)
• ensure that each benchmark produces at least one metric
• define reliable and common metrics to compare different qubit modalities, as well as the depth of the HPC-QC integration based on pre-defined criteria (e.g. efficiency)
• ensure the scalability of each benchmark by identifying relevant scale parameters
 Proposals should provide a thorough justification for the selection of each benchmark and performance metric, clearly explaining how they align with the specific requirements and priorities of the European HPC-QC landscape. The inclusion or integration of existing benchmarks under the umbrella of this initiative is clearly foreseen, provided there are prior agreements with the benchmark owners and compatibility with licensing conditions.
The proposal must also outline a clear IP plan and licensing strategy under the European Union Public Licence (EUPL-1.2) to safeguard openness and promoting European industrial uptake enabling first exploitation within EU- and Participating States.
The project will also propose and maintain a detailed strategic development roadmap for the action, which:
 • anticipates future developments in QC and hybrid HPC-QC, including emerging technologies
• foresees the hardware agnostic and hardware inclusive support of hybrid HPC-QC systems
 The consortium will actively engage with industry and research communities through workshops, working groups, and feedback loops to receive continuous feedback ensuring that all benchmarks are relevant and up to date.
Requirements:
 • The proposal shall take into consideration the state of the art of development quantum computing benchmarking
• Define a mechanism to monitor the benchmarking framework and pool appropriate existing benchmark suites, relevant for architectures of all participating HPC-QC centres for deployment in a common data repository
• The benchmarking framework and the encompassing benchmarking suite will be made available to the user communities under the European Union Public Licence (EUPL).
 [1] run rules define required and forbidden hardware, software, optimization, tuning, and procedures.
**conditions:** General conditions
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
The conditions are described in the General Annex A of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.

The page limit of the application is 70 pages.

2. Eligible Countries
described in Annex B of the Work Programme General Annexes.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

3. Other Eligible Conditions
The conditions are described in the General Annex B of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.
A number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon Europe projects. See the information in the Horizon Europe Programme Guide.

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, and safeguard the Union’s strategic assets, interests, autonomy, and security, participation in this topic is limited to legal entities established in Member States, associated countries, to Horizon Europe and EuroHPC JU Participating States. Proposals including legal entities which are not established in these countries[[Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye, United Kingdom, all countries that automatically eligible for funding under Horizon Europe as provided in list-3rd-country-participation_horizon-euratom_en.pdf (V3.5 – 20.08.2025).]] will be ineligible.
This decision has been taken on the grounds that, in the area of research covered by this topic, EU open strategic autonomy is particularly at stake. It is important to avoid a situation of technological dependency on a non-EU source, in a global context that requires the EU to take action to build on its strengths, and to carefully assess and address any strategic weaknesses, vulnerabilities and high-risk dependencies which put at risk the attainment of its ambitions.

4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
The criteria are described in Annex C of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5a. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
The procedure is described in General Annex F of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.

The granting authority can fund a maximum of one project.

The criteria are are described in Annex D of the Work Programme General Annexes.

5b. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
The criteria are described in of the General Annex D of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.

5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
The criteria are described in Annex F of the Work Programme General Annexes.

6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
As an exception from General Annex G of the Horizon Europe Work Programme, the EU-funding rate for eligible costs in grants awarded by the JU for this topic will be up to 50% of the eligible costs.
The rules are described in General Annex G of the of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.

Specific conditions
 

The documents are described in General Annex E of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2023-2025.

Application and evaluation forms and model grant agreement (MGA):
 Application form templates — the application form specific to this call is available in the Submission System
Standard application form (HE RIA, IA) 
Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 1) 
Standard application form (HE RIA IA Stage 1 BLIND) 
Standard application form (HE CSA) 
Standard application form (HE CSA Stage 1) 
Standard application form (HE CSA Stage 1 BLIND) 
Standard application form (HE RI) 
Standard application form (HE PCP) 
Standard application form (HE PPI) 
Standard application form (HE COFUND) 
Standard application form (HE FPA) 
Standard application form (HE MSCA PF) 
Standard application form (HE MSCA DN) 
Standard application form (HE MSCA SE) 
Standard application form (HE MSCA COFUND) 
Standard application form (HE MSCA COFUND CE) 
Standard application form (HE ERC STG) 
Standard application form (HE ERC COG) 
Standard application form (HE ERC ADG) 
Standard application form (HE ERC POC) 
Standard application form (HE ERC SYG) 
Standard application form (HE EIC PATHFINDER CHALLENGES) 
Standard application form (HE EIC PATHFINDER OPEN) 
Standard application form (HE EIC TRANSITION) 
Standard application form (HE EIC STEP) 
Standard application form (HE EIC Accelerator stage 2 - full proposal)
Standard application form (HE EIC Accelerator stage 1 - short proposal)
Evaluation form templates — will be used with the necessary adaptations 
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA) 
Standard evaluation form (HE CSA) 
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA and CSA Stage 1) 
Standard evaluation form (HE RIA, IA and CSA Stage 1 BLIND) 
Standard evaluation form (HE PCP PPI) 
Standard evaluation form (HE COFUND) 
Standard evaluation form (HE FPA) 
Standard evaluation form (HE MSCA) 
Standard evaluation form (HE EIC PATHFINDER CHALLENGES) 
Standard evaluation form (HE EIC PATHFINDER OPEN) 
Standard evaluation form (HE EIC TRANSITION) 
Standard evaluation form (HE EIC Accelerator stage 1 - short proposal) 
Standard evaluation form (HE EIC Accelerator stage 2 - full proposal) 
Guidance
HE Programme Guide 
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
HE MGA 
HE Unit MGA 
Lump Sum MGA 
Operating Grants MGA 
Framework Partnership Agreement FPA 
Call-specific instructions 
Detailed budget table (HE LS) 
Information on financial support to third parties (HE) 
Information on clinical studies (HE) 
Guidance: "Lump sums - what do I need to know?"

Additional documents:
 HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 1. General Introduction
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2025 – 2. Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 3. Research Infrastructures
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 4. Health
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 5. Culture, creativity and inclusive society
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 6. Civil Security for Society
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 7. Digital, Industry and Space
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 8. Climate, Energy and Mobility
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 9. Food, Bioeconomy, Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 10. European Innovation Ecosystems (EIE)
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 11. Widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 12. Missions
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 13. New European Bauhaus Facility (NEB)
HE Main Work Programme 2025 – 14. General Annexes
HE Main Work Programme 2023–2025 – 13. General Annexes
EIC Work Programme 2025
ERC Work Programme 2026
HE Programme Guide
HE Framework Programme 2021/695
HE Specific Programme Decision 2021/764 
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Decision authorising the use of lump sum contributions under the Horizon Europe Programme
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment 
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement 
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual 
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions 
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement
**action type:** HORIZON  Research and Innovation Actions
**budget:** 
  **budget Years Columns:** 
    - 2024
  **budget Topic Action Map:** 
    **108535:** 
      -         **action:** HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05 - HORIZON-RIA HORIZON  Research and Innovation Actions
        **budget Year Map:** 
          **2024:** 2000000
        **deadline Dates:** 
          - 2026-04-14
        **deadline Model:** single-stage
        **expected Grants:** 1
        **max Contribution:** 1000000
        **min Contribution:** 500000
        **planned Opening Date:** 2025-12-11
      -         **action:** HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05-03 - HORIZON-RIA HORIZON  Research and Innovation Actions
        **budget Year Map:** 
          **2024:** 2000000
        **deadline Dates:** 
          - 2026-04-14
        **deadline Model:** single-stage
        **expected Grants:** 1
        **max Contribution:** 1000000
        **min Contribution:** 500000
        **planned Opening Date:** 2025-12-11
**keywords:** HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05-03, HORIZON-EUROHPC-JU-2024-BENCHMARK-05, High performance computing
**last synced at:** 2026-11-09T17:23:17.403+00:00

## Review record

No independent verification record is available.

## Source metadata