Europe cannot afford to not lead quantum tech
But Germany and France are profoundly divided
This newsletter captures the thought leadership of the GQI management team in a more strategic manner, free from the factual and unbiased approach of the company.
Dear quantum friends,
I was 9 years old when my dad came home from a long business trip to announce to my mom and I that he had received two job offers - one in Sudan, and one in Belgium. According to my oversized atlas Belgium was a lot closer to Germany and I spent the rest of my schooling at l’École Européenne de Bruxelles I - an enclave for kids of EU officiaries - while my farther climbed the ranks at the European Commission.
I know Brussels. I understand the EU. I love Europe.
A united Europe with a well-funded, strategically coordinated quantum technology program could become a formidable global player — driving innovation, fostering economic resilience, and bolstering the EU’s collective defense posture. It also represents a historic inflection point: Europe can either seize the initiative to be a quantum front-runner or risk ceding technological sovereignty to the U.S. or China for good.
Which one will it be?
Europe enters the quantum decade with enviable structural assets. It already hosts roughly a quarter of the world’s quantum‑focused companies and, by our counts, leads every other region in the number of deployed quantum computers, from ion‑trap machines in Innsbruck to superconducting prototypes in Paris‑Saclay. Those machines sit atop a research lattice funded by Brussels and the member states: Horizon Europe calls, national flagship programmes and defence budgets funnel billions into joint labs that stretch from Copenhagen to Barcelona. The continent’s academic engine is equally formidable — Sweden alone graduates more quantum engineers per capita than any other country — while formal collaboration channels ensure that European scientists plug directly into allied efforts rather than working in isolation.
Where Europe struggles is the brutal arithmetic of commercial scale‑up. Venture and corporate cash chased quantum deals in the United States at roughly triple the European rate last year; on the continent overall investment actually fell forty per cent, leaving many start‑ups financially fragile just as their American counterparts were closing nine‑figure rounds. The shortage of home‑grown late‑stage funds means founders often look to Silicon Valley or Singapore when they need €100 million‑plus cheques, eroding the very “strategic autonomy” Brussels wants to build. Supply‑chain dependence compounds the funding gap: dilution refrigerators, high‑performance control electronics and specialist cryo‑CMOS chips are still sourced largely from outside the Union, exposing European roadmaps to export‑control whims far beyond its borders.
Yet, Europe’s deep bench of scientists could translate into genuine market leadership rather than scientific kudos alone. If it finds policy coherence.
A technology shift: the implications for Europe
Economic Impact
Europe’s quantum moment is first and foremost an economic play. A home‑grown ecosystem — stretching from cryogenic hardware labs in Delft to quantum‑software studios in Lisbon — can spin up entirely new markets that simply do not exist today. We are talking about dedicated operating systems for qubits, bespoke quantum‑grade materials, and professional services that translate spooky math into CFO‑friendly KPIs. The prize is tens of thousands of high‑skill jobs and a surge of private capital that normally migrates westward across the Atlantic or eastward across the Pacific. If Brussels moves now, those euros stay on the continent and compound in local pay cheques, tax receipts, and reinvested R&D budgets.
The spill‑overs into Europe’s flagship industries are even harder to ignore. Quantum optimisation can shave percentage points off Pan‑European logistics routes for auto suppliers; photonic‑based simulations can compress drug‑discovery timelines for Basel’s pharma giants; and quantum‑enhanced CFD models could let Airbus prototype cleaner wings in silico before a single piece of carbon fibre is laid. By federating national labs, startup accelerators, and big‑company R&D teams into a handful of “super‑clusters,” Europe prevents the chronic fragmentation that has so often dulled its tech edge. Think of a corridor that runs Paris‑Saclay ↔ Munich ↔ Ámsterdam; each node specialising in a slice of the stack but sharing talent, capital, and IP under one branded European banner. That is how you convert scattered brilliance into global competitiveness — and how you make “strategic autonomy” more than a press‑release mantra.
Defense and Security
Security chiefs already lose sleep over the day someone points a cryptographically relevant quantum computer at Europe’s encrypted archives. Being first means that day never arrives. By scaling up EuroQCI from a string of testbeds into a continent‑spanning backbone Europe can hard‑wire quantum‑secure communications into every government ministry, energy grid operator, and defence contractor. Layer in a mandatory migration path to post‑quantum cryptography and the Union inoculates itself against the retrospective decryption threat long before hostile actors bring the big iron online.
Yet resilience is only half the story; quantum is also a force‑multiplier for intelligence and deterrence. High‑dimensional optimisation can turn strategic wargaming into a living digital twin of potential flashpoints, letting planners stress‑test supply lines or missile‑defence geometries in hours instead of weeks. If member states converge on shared protocols and hardware roadmaps, that capability slots neatly into NATO command structures and the EU’s own Common Security and Defence Policy, ensuring seamless interoperability from Tallinn to Taranto. The result is a more coherent, forward‑leaning defence posture that signals to allies and adversaries alike that Europe intends to run with the technological front‑runners, not trail them.
A Historic Opportunity for Europe
Every few decades the continent gets a shot at technological reinvention on the scale of CERN or Airbus; quantum is that shot. A pan‑EU program — bigger, louder, and better coordinated than any flagship to date — can pool national budgets, academic brilliance, and industrial heft into a single roadmap that nobody can call a vanity project. One governance structure, one set of milestones, one shared procurement pipeline. That simplicity alone would cure the duplication disease that drains resources and leaves excellent science marooned in national silos. Europe’s hallmark collaboration ethos becomes a competitive weapon rather than an administrative footnote.
But quantum also lets the Union infuse cutting‑edge tech with its own values. Privacy by design, transparency, ethical AI guidelines — all can be baked into quantum standards before global norms solidify, just as GDPR set the tone for data protection. By writing the rulebook early and exporting it confidently, Europe shapes not only the market but the moral operating system of the quantum era. In geopolitical terms, that is leverage: a continent able to strike partnerships with Washington, Ottawa, Tokyo or Canberra from a position of strength, not dependence. Economically, it is the closest thing to future‑proofing Europe’s growth prospects in a century defined by digital acceleration. Get this moment right and Brussels won’t merely catch up in the global tech race; it will help define the course — and the code — by which that race is run.
A united European quantum strategy is about more than just catching up in a high-tech race: it’s a chance to reshape the continent’s industrial base, fortify its defense capabilities, and assert global leadership. The EU already has strong foundations — world-class research institutions, high-performing industrial sectors, and a history of collaborative megaprojects. By scaling investments, harmonizing efforts, and embedding a distinctly European vision of ethical and open innovation, the EU can elevate itself into a premier quantum powerhouse — one that not only competes with global leaders but sets the tone for how this transformative technology serves society at large.
What does it take to “do Europe”?
Europe is a beast and getting anything done in Brussels is as much art as science as true spookiness.
Lots has been accomplished: the European Commission directorates (CNECT, DEFIS, GROW), Parliament, the Council, and NATO’s DIANA & STO are the concentric circles of influence. QuiC, along with think‑tank voices, shapes agendas well before dossiers hit a parliamentary committee. And key stakeholders, from investors to entrepreneurs, sit in all the right meetings.
Yet, much more needs to happen to be competitive.
A permanent EU‑NATO‑industry “Quantum Security Task Force” with standing liaisons from the big coalitions could turn ad‑hoc coordination into muscle memory. And a pilot “Quantum Free Zone” (Delft‑Munich‑Paris‑Saclay is an obvious triangle) where export‑control approvals, IP incentives, and cross‑border procurement rules are streamlined for three to five years might make commercialization palpable.
Prioritize long term collaboration
A standing “Quantum Intergroup” inside the European Parliament would give MEPs a permanent forum — backed by monthly demos, boot‑camp crash courses for Commission and NATO staff, and a steady stream of one‑page briefs — to translate quantum jargon into the language of industrial policy, Green Deal targets, and collective defence. Once policymakers can see, touch, and debate a live QKD link or a climate‑model speed‑up, quantum stops being abstract science and becomes a tool they can legislate for, budget around, and defend at the ballot box.
Momentum, however, is built in the regions, so every member state needs its own headline success story — whether that’s a photonic‑chip spin‑out in Eindhoven, a QKD corridor in Bavaria, or a quantum‑sensing test range in Occitanie — tied visibly to EU funds and framed as local jobs, skills, and private investment. Feeding those case studies into Digital Innovation Hubs and EIT Digital nodes lets quantum piggy‑back on existing cluster machinery, while alignment with national flagships such as Germany’s QuNET or France’s national plan avoids the duplication that has so often blunted Europe’s tech ambitions.
Win the talent war
A credible quantum push also lives or dies on talent, which means embedding a “Quantum Skills Agenda” inside the broader European Skills Strategy. Specialized master’s tracks, technician up‑skilling courses, and Erasmus‑style lab exchanges need to sit alongside vouchers that let mid‑career engineers or cybersecurity analysts pivot into quantum roles. Diversity programs that pull women and under‑represented groups into the pipeline are not just a social add‑on — they expand a talent pool Europe cannot otherwise fill.
None of that matters without patient money for basic research, so the next Framework Program must ring‑fence quantum missions the way Horizon Europe once did for graphene. A pan‑European “Quantum Alliance,” modeled on the Battery or Hydrogen Alliances, can knit together labs, prime contractors, and supply‑chain specialists under a shared roadmap, while an EIC‑style accelerator funnels blended finance to startups that have cleared proof‑of‑concept but still face the valley of death between prototype and product.
Industrialize quantum
Commercial firepower is the other half of sovereignty. The Commission should nudge Europe’s industrial heavyweights — Airbus, Siemens, Thales — into public‑private consortia with the continent’s most nimble startups and labs, each cluster specialising in a slice of the stack, from superconducting fabrication in Saxony to photonic chips in the Île‑de‑France and middleware in the Netherlands. Structural funds can finance the hard infrastructure, while the European Investment Bank supplies patient, low‑interest capital that bridges the valley of death between prototype and product. A pan‑European deep‑tech fund, seeded with EU money but matched by private LPs, would de‑risk early‑stage bets. Governments themselves should become lead customers, issuing procurement calls that test quantum advantage in grid balancing, supply‑chain routing, or climate modelling, and backing them with showcase pilots that pull corporate laggards into the game.
Provide certainty and global guidance
The regulatory runway has to encourage, rather than stifle, that innovation. Brussels should lead global standard‑setting — through CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI — so that protocols for QKD, quantum‑safe cryptography, and hardware interoperability carry a Made‑in‑Europe stamp. Regulatory sandboxes can give early pilots room to breathe, much as they have in fintech, while a common NATO–EU rulebook for dual‑use quantum components closes export‑control loopholes without throttling legitimate research.
Leverage the momentum around defense
Defense adds urgency. A joint NATO‑EU “Quantum Security” task force — drawing on STO, DIANA, the European Defense Agency, and the Commission — can co‑fund sensing, navigation, and secure‑comms projects, spin up shared testbeds between Brussels and Norfolk, and set a rhythm of quarterly meetings that keep priorities aligned and red tape minimal. EuroQCI has to move from pilot to full continental backbone, meshing terrestrial fibre links with an accelerated IRIS² satellite constellation that carries space‑based QKD payloads. Demonstrating an operational quantum link between NATO command and an EU institution would deliver more political capital than a dozen policy papers.
On the security front, the Union must treat quantum as both a shield and a sword. The European Defence Fund can bankroll joint projects on quantum‑enhanced radar, secure timing, and ultra‑precise navigation, while a tight handshake with NATO ensures common standards and shared threat intelligence. Brussels should set a deadline — say 2030 — for every government agency, critical‑infrastructure operator, and defence contractor to migrate to post‑quantum cryptography, sweetening the mandate with technical templates and transition grants. Meanwhile, dedicated R&D streams for quantum wargaming, logistics optimisation, and strategic sensing will arm Europe’s militaries with simulation power their adversaries cannot match.
A single European market
Politically, quantum needs air cover. High‑profile “Quantum Summits” under each rotating Council presidency, supported by simple dashboards that track patents, startups, jobs, and flagship breakthroughs, keep ministers awake to progress and gaps alike. Framing quantum as an accelerant for the Green and Digital Agendas — think faster climate models or sovereign encryption — lets leaders justify budgets even when fiscal space is tight.
The policy spine needs teeth, and that means a harmonised legal regime that treats quantum like the strategic asset it is. A refresh of the dual‑use regulation has to pull qubits, quantum sensors, and next‑gen cryo‑electronics under one, uniformly enforced export‑control roof, so that black‑box loopholes in one member state don’t undercut the rest. In parallel, the Unitary Patent must become the default shield for quantum inventions, sparing companies the current maze of national filings. Standards bodies such as ETSI should be commissioned to draft European protocols for quantum‑safe cryptography, QKD networks, and hardware interoperability, with an EU‑wide certification mark — call it “QE” for Quantum Europe — guaranteeing trust and quality. GDPR, too, needs a quantum appendix to guide quantum‑resilient data storage and encryption, while ethical committees keep an eye on AI–quantum hybrids so that the bloc’s civil‑rights DNA survives the leap into post‑classical computing.
Make it a popular movement
Finally, the message must hit home at street level: quantum means safer banking apps, cleaner power grids, and highly paid jobs in your region. Cultivating champions — committee chairs in Parliament, tech‑savvy ministers in Berlin or Paris, defence hawks in NATO — ensures that commitment survives electoral cycles. And throughout, Europe must thread the needle between open scientific collaboration and hard‑nosed security, tightening IP protection and supply‑chain vetting even as it invites trusted partners to share the journey.
By embedding quantum technology into the larger European policy conversation, creating clear avenues for local engagement, and systematically educating policymakers, the EU and NATO can foster a robust ecosystem that advances Europe’s quantum leadership, economic growth, and strategic security.
Which one will it be?
Europe cannot afford another patchwork initiative; it needs a single, headline‑worthy Quantum Strategy that is driven from Brussels and co‑signed by every capital. That strategy should appear as a public, time‑stamped roadmap from the European Commission, complete with milestone targets — say, a fault‑tolerant prototype online before the decade closes — and a transparent budget ladder that scales with each milestone. A fully empowered “European Quantum Agency” would sit at the center, policing fragmentation, coordinating research calls, and steering a beefed‑up Flagship programme whose instruments range from non‑dilutive grants to equity stakes. Horizon Europe, the European Defence Fund, and the cohesion funds must all carry ring‑fenced quantum lines, while a pan‑continental training scheme — EU‑funded doctorates, shared curricula, and Erasmus‑style lab rotations — builds the workforce that can actually deliver on the roadmap.
Europe is more fragile than it appears. Especially after Brexit, the heavy load needs to, once again, be pulled by the Franco-German engine. And it is stalling. Not just because of disagreements over policy but for profound cultural reasons that after 31 years of the EU experiment have only become more pronounced.
Reality is that Germany, and the recent election reinforces that, continues to be governed by weak consensus close to the bare minimum with a backdrop of persistent historical guilt. And France continues to struggle with how to define its role on the global stage, as a junior partner to its Germanic neighbor, despite recent economic out-performance. All while the rest of Europe watches with a mix of bewilderment and jealousy, frozen in paralysis, but clearly recognizing that they are simply too weak to compete.
Without a new leader, able to unite Europe fiscally, politically and militarily, those cultural differences will prevent any large scale coordinate EU effort that can credibly compete with the US. None of the recent election cycles in France, Germany or Italy (with the exception of the Draghi report) have identified such a person. Spain and Poland remain too marginal to take on such a role and the Nordics are as united as the rest of Europe.
All of this matters because quantum is one of those once‑in‑a‑century inflection points that can redraw the map of economic power — and Europe has a short window to shape the rules rather than follow them. Brussels must sell the public on quantum the way it once did on the euro and Galileo: as critical infrastructure that anchors digital sovereignty and keeps Europe relevant in a multi-polar world. That requires budgets insulated from electoral mood swings — decade‑long envelopes, not annual scraps — and a high‑level review board reporting to Parliament to keep the mission honest, agile, and auditable. Get it right, and the quantum push becomes a unifying project on par with the Single Market; get it wrong, and Europe risks watching the next era of human and economic development unfold from the sidelines.
Who is that European leader? Because #QuantumIsComing
This is my personal newsletter, all opinions are mine and do not represent GQI, The Quantum Computing Report and other affiliated entities.
This newsletter has been written with the help of our GQI @ AI - a GQI proprietary RAG that exclusively looks at curated GQI expert content published since 2015. All ideas, thoughts, talking points, structure and storytelling are by me. All text has been edited by me. Many words haven been put on paper by a robot.