07/09/2026
Aura Salla 👇
🔹 Looking ahead. In my opinion, the next phase of the needs to focus on industrialisation, and supply chain resilience. One of the biggest risks is that Europe excels at science but remains dependent on others for critical components, manufacturing and commercialisation.
🔹 We should not try to solve this with another large research programme, as the main challenge is no longer research. Nor should the public sector try to pick the winning technology — whether superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, neutral atom or something else. Let the market decide!
🔹 We also need to address the “valley of death” between university research and industrial production. Public money alone will not solve this, but the EIB and a quantum version of the EIC + EIB + national and industrial EU funds could invest €50–500 million in companies that have demonstrated technological traction. Public financing should be tied to clear industrial and commercial milestones. The private sector also needs to step in BIG time.
🔹 The EU and public sector can create early market opportunities. Public procurement can act as an early adopter and first customer, helping technologies reach commercial maturity. Defence is an obvious example — from quantum sensing and GPS-independent navigation to secure communications and advanced simulation. Energy, telecoms and finance offer further opportunities. Together, these can create a European home market.
🔹 The EU should identify critical quantum dependencies and build a limited number of strategic capabilities. European companies should also have access to quantum processors through common infrastructure integrated with EuroHPC.
🔹 We need to treat quantum as a critical technology from day one, creating the conditions for European companies to reach commercial maturity, scale globally and keep critical capabilities and supply chains in Europe. These priorities should be clearly reflected in the upcoming .
