Classiq and QAI launch Korea's first local QaaS offering
Classiq and South Korean deep-tech firm QAI Co., Ltd. have signed a commercial agreement to deliver what the companies are positioning as Korea's first locally hosted Quantum-as-a-Service (QaaS) offering. The partnership couples Classiq's SOC 2-accredited quantum software engineering platform with QAI's domestic AI datacenter infrastructure, enabling Korean enterprises, public institutions and research organisations to design, test and execute quantum applications without requiring in-house hardware expertise.
Under the arrangement, QAI will own the commercial relationship: handling customer acquisition, business development, service operations and local partnership expansion. Classiq will provide the underlying software platform and a technical support framework tailored for Korean users. The two companies say they also intend to pursue joint marketing, engineer enablement and customer education programmes over the medium and longer term.
The offering
Classiq's platform automatically compiles high-level functional models into optimised, hardware-executable quantum circuits that can run across different quantum hardware environments. QAI brings datacenter partnerships with Korean specialists DCK and DCP, giving the joint offering dedicated hyperscale and edge infrastructure for quantum and AI workloads.
A notable element of the announcement is an explicit focus on digital sovereignty. The two companies say they will explore local infrastructure options designed to meet the data-residency and security requirements of Korean public-sector bodies and large enterprises, a concern that is becoming standard in government-adjacent quantum procurement globally.
Nir Minerbi, CEO and co-founder of Classiq, said: "Our offering with QAI is an important step toward making advanced quantum software and cutting-edge quantum resources seamlessly accessible in Korea, supporting a Korean QaaS offering that reflects the market's infrastructure, security and adoption needs."
Seman Im, CEO of QAI, described the partnership as providing the foundation for a quantum cloud service optimised to Korean market conditions, with a stated goal of helping major institutions evaluate and apply quantum computing in practical business settings.
Market context
The QaaS segment is still nascent globally, with most revenue deriving from cloud-access pilots, government research grants and consortium contracts rather than production workloads. The Korea announcement places Classiq alongside a cohort of quantum software vendors, including Q-CTRL, Zapata (now restructured) and IBM's Qiskit ecosystem, that are competing to become the abstraction layer of choice above quantum hardware.
Korea's government has been stepping up quantum investment as part of broader national competitiveness strategies, making it an attractive market for early commercialisation partners. The emphasis on sovereignty-focused cloud infrastructure aligns with a wider regional trend: Japan, India and several EU member states have introduced similar requirements that effectively favour locally operated quantum infrastructure over purely offshore services.
Classiq has disclosed cumulative funding of more than $200 million as of November 2025, with backers including SoftBank, AMD, Qualcomm, HSBC and the European Innovation Council. Its named enterprise customers include Rolls-Royce, Comcast, the BMW Group and Intesa Sanpaolo. The company did not disclose the commercial terms of the QAI agreement, including any revenue-share structure or minimum committed volumes.
For investors and potential customers, the key near-term milestones will be the naming of a first Korean institutional customer and the publication of performance or fidelity benchmarks for applications executed on QAI's local infrastructure. The broader question facing the QaaS category remains how quickly organisations can move from evaluation and proof-of-concept to workloads that justify ongoing subscription spend.