Quantum continent: Is Europe ready to leap into the future?

Since the beginning of the European Commission’s current mandate, quantum technology has rapidly moved to the heart of various strategic policy agendas, not least the Competitiveness Compass. This is hardly surprising, given the increasingly heated global race to establish leadership in translating lab-based potential into real-world hardware and applications. Indeed, last year’s flagship report from Mario Draghi referred to quantum as “the next trailblazing innovation in the computing field”, underlining its potential to ‘turbo-charge’ the EU’s industrial competitiveness and technological sovereignty.

Against this backdrop, in July the Commission issued its latest plans to capitalise on Europe’s historic excellence in many quantum-related research fields, as well as its flourishing ecosystem of early-stage entrepreneurship and start-ups. The sense of urgency is palpable, however: despite its unquestioned assets, the quantum landscape in Europe displays many of the same structural weaknesses as other critical and emerging tech sectors, including (but not limited to) a shallow pool of venture capital, a lack of early corporate adopters and integrated market for uptake of solutions, and a shortage of talent and skills. In addition, a fragmented array of EU-level and national programmes has inevitably lead to duplication and inefficiencies in multiple areas, despite billions of euros in public financing. 

Nonetheless, the Commission’s Quantum Europe Strategy underlines how critical research and innovation (R&I) will be to resolving these issues and achieving wider EU objectives. A new initiative within the strategy will seek to consolidate European and national efforts behind a common agenda to develop and scale research, technologies and innovation throughout the quantum value chain. The R&I approach will feed directly into a new Quantum Act proposal, due out next year, alongside other governance initiatives to better align the EU’s key instruments supporting digital tech development and deployment.  

As the Commission moves forward with its work, important questions arise for the R&I community, including: how can the Commission most effectively engage with leading quantum stakeholders in both public and private sectors to optimise the R&I framework, and where are the most pressing knowledge gaps? To what degree can top-down and bottom-up approaches be balanced in tackling quantum science and tech problems currently hindering progress? How will the intended ‘Grand Challenges’ work in practice, and which role for industry in driving them forward? Should Europe seek to prioritise in specific parts of the quantum tech stack, instead of attempting to lead across the board? And – perhaps more importantly – to what extent can Europe’s current weaknesses be addressed through international cooperation and joint initiatives?

On November 18, Science|Business will convene members of its international Network, EU institutions and other key stakeholders to discuss these questions and more, as a means to explore the opportunity landscape and potential barriers to success for Europe’s quantum community.