An Italian Court Annuls a Previous €47 Million ($55.6M USD) Award to IBM for Providing a Quantum Computer at the University of Salerno - Quantum Computing Report
Summarize this article with:
An Italian Court Annuls a Previous €47 Million ($55.6M USD) Award to IBM for Providing a Quantum Computer at the University of Salerno Fisciano Campus of the University of Salerno In December of 2024, the government of Campania, Italy issued a tender with a budget of €62.1 million for the purchase, delivery, installation, and specialized support of a quantum system to be installed at the Fisciano campus of the University of Salerno with a due date of February 10, 2025. The proposals were to be ranked according to three different individual scores, Technical, Economic, and Time with a Total Score calculated as a weighted average of those three. Only an hour before the bid deadline would occur, it was extended by one week until February 17, 2025 with the explanation that foreign economic organizations needed a little more time due to the use of the online platform, the language, and the procedures for signing documents. Several of the organizations submitted their bids by the original deadline while IBM submitted its bid one week later. The award commission reviewed the bids and ranked them in the order shown below and in September 2025, IBM was awarded the contract with a total bid amount of €47 Million ($55.6M USD). IBM Tea Tek (with Rigetti, Treq, and Quantware) Hewlett Packard (with IQM) Telecom Italia (with IonQ) However, Tea Tek challenged the outcome of the tender pointing out that all the bid preparers had two months to prepare their bid and any language barriers are easily overcome using modern translation tools. And now, the Campania Regional Administrative Court (TAR) agreed with these arguments and has annulled the award. At this point, it is not yet clear what will happen next.
The Campania Region government which opened the tender procedure may decide to start the bidding process all over again. Or they may just decide to choose the bid from the organizations that submitted their bid by the original deadline. Or they may decide to appeal the court’s decision. We will have to see which option they choose. For additional detail on all this, you can view an article (in Italian) posted on the website fanpage.it. Also available is full documentation of the tender procedure and awards (Notice (PI017485-24) on the website of the Campania regional government here.