Awarded to French researcher Michel Devoret and British scientist John Clarke (in association with American John M. Martinis), the Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 underlines Europe's scientific strength in quantum computing. But it also symbolizes Europe's weaknesses: both laureates now work at major American universities, whose resources allocated to fundamental research are out of all proportion to those of institutions on the Old Continent.

This observation is not limited to the academic world. It also holds true in the business sector. Admittedly, several European startups are at the forefront of quantum computing. These include Pascal, Alice & Bob, and Quandela in France; Planqc in Germany; IQM and Algorithmiq in Finland; QuantWare in the Netherlands; and Multiverse Computing in Spain. But they must also compete with American giants that have far greater financial clout, such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and IBM.

The quantum race is still wide open

Quantum computing is expected to dramatically increase computing power. It is not based on classical bits, which operate in a binary manner, but on qubits, which can take on both the values 0 and 1. In theory, it should enable massive parallel computing. And thus significantly reduce the time required to perform these calculations.

In practice, however, quantum computing is hampered by the instability of qubits. This results in a much higher error rate than in traditional computing. This problem is all the more serious because the error rate increases as the number of qubits increases. Despite recent announcements by Google and Microsoft, no one has yet succeeded in solving this problem.

The race for quantum computing is therefore still wide open. It is being contested by the United States, China, and Europe. Facing its two rivals, the European Union has already injected two billion euros in public funds. Added to this is approximately nine billion euros in funding from national governments. These investments appear to have paid off. The EU publishes more research papers than the United States and China. And it accounts for about one-third of the companies active in quantum computing—more than its main competitors.

Quantum Europe strategy

The EU-27, however, are struggling to take the next step. As a result, they account for only 6% of patents filed in this field, far behind China and the United States. This is due in large part to a lack of private funding. Not only do European startups attract fewer investors than their American counterparts, but American tech giants also invest far more.

As a result, the EU attracts only 5% of global private funding in quantum technology, compared with more than 50% for the United States. “This makes the transition from research to industry extremely difficult for our startups and companies,” noted Henna Virkkunen, the European Commissioner for Technological Sovereignty, this summer during the presentation of the Quantum Europe strategy.

This ambitious roadmap aims to make Europe “a leading player” in the field of quantum technologies by 2030. To achieve this, Brussels aims to reduce “the fragmentation of strategies and roadmaps among member states,” integrate quantum technology into space, security, and defense strategies, accelerate the development of a skilled workforce, and develop infrastructure hubs to pool the investments needed for the development of quantum computing.

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On the Main Stage at DevOps Live Paris, two flagship sessions will explore major technological challenges: “2025: From Concept to Reality for Quantum Computing Technologies” (November 5) and “Building the Technological Infrastructure for the Age of AI and Quantum Computing” (November 6). Join McKinsey, TotalEnergies, ENGIE, Stellaria, and the French Telecommunications Federation to discover how Europe is actively preparing for the era of quantum computing and artificial intelligence.

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