• 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.

Article Summaries:

  • In February 2026, the Campania Regional Administrative Court (TAR) annulled the 2025 award of a €47 million contract to IBM for a quantum computing system at the University of Salerno’s Fisciano campus. The court ruled that the tender’s deadline extension-granted only an hour before the original cut‑off-unfairly disadvantaged firms that submitted bids on time, citing that all applicants had sufficient preparation time and could overcome language barriers with translation tools. The decision leaves the region’s procurement process unresolved; it may reopen the tender, award the contract to the earliest‑submitted bidders, or appeal the ruling. The outcome will shape the university’s quantum‑technology rollout.

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