Microsoft expanded its Azure Quantum credit program to offer more quantum hardware and technology options. The company claims this program propels quantum computing research and innovation for academic researchers, students, and enterprise explorers.

The Azure Quantum products integrate quantum computing and Azure cloud services. It is a cloud quantum computing service that enables users to access a diverse set of quantum hardware, software, and technologies from the tech giant and its partners.

And users can choose the quantum programming languages including Cirq, Qiskit, and Q#, while running their own algorithms on multiple quantum systems, according to Microsoft.

Microsoft announced in February that it provides up to $10,000 in credits for applicants that use Azure Quantum hardware partners. The initial hardware options are Quantinuum H1 and IonQ Harmony quantum processing units.

Now, its simulator and emulator allows “experimentation on IonQ Aria’s 23 algorithmic qubit system, Quantinuum H2, and Rigetti’s 40 qubit Aspen-11 and latest 80 qubit modular chip Aspen-M-1 endpoints,” Linda Lauw, senior director of planning and partnerships of Azure Quantum at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

Additionally, the neutral atom-based quantum technology from Pasqal will be available in the program soon, Lauw added.

Lauw noted in the post that KPMG in collaboration with the Danish Technical University (DTU), Bar-Ilan University, and the University of Washington among the credit recipients of the Azure Quantum credit program.

The program offers a chance for students to program and evaluates real quantum devices, said Kai-Mei Fu, Professor of Physics at the University of Washington. “Students were able to design their own research problems and run experiments on the IonQ machine access to Azure Quantum.”

“Our students had never accessed hardware,” she added. “It turns out, there are some surprising results that happen when you use a real quantum computer that are very important.”

For KPMG and DTU, they use the program for neural networks-focused research. They used a certain puzzle to test quantum and classical computers and found the success rate of a quantum computer is 97%, compared to 87% for a classical computer.

“Azure Quantum democratized the ability to use quantum computing,” Bent Dalager, partner and global head of KPMG’s Quantum Hub, said in a statement. “Instead of having to rely on a specific piece of hardware, through a language layer, you can pursue quantum computing through Azure Quantum in a tremendously more efficient way.”

Microsoft Azure is not the only cloud platform that offers remote access to quantum computers. Amazon Web Services (AWS) has a similar program — Amazon Braket to accelerate quantum computing research and Google Cloud also offers quantum computing services.