Quantum Ecosystem Taking Shape in Europe
(ScienceBusiness.Net) There is evidence that a commercialization ecosystem is starting to take shape in Europe after an onrush of public investment in quantum research.
“You have one family of technologies driving all these different industries,” said Kai Bongs, professor of physics and astronomy at Birmingham University. Bongs is lead investigator at the UK Quantum Technology Hub for Sensors and Timing where he oversees the development of quantum gravity sensors or gravimeters that are predicted to be twice as sensitive and 10 times as fast as current equipment.
“Start-ups are beginning to sprout like mushrooms,” said Tommaso Calarco a theoretical physicist at the Helmholtz Centre in Jülich, Germany. “Every workshop I go to now, there’s a new one I haven’t seen before.” Calarco is one of the leading forces behind the EU’s €1 billion Quantum Technologies Flagship.
Quantonation, which founder Christophe Jurczak says is probably the first venture capital fund in Europe dedicated to quantum. The firm is has invested in four early-stage “deep physics” companies “I was living and working in Palo Alto and realised things were starting to move,” said Jurczak. “There were early signals that quantum was going to be big.” Jurczak, who has a PhD in quantum physics, returned to Paris and started the fund with two friends last year.
IQT Europe 2019, October 29-39, co-organized by IQT and QuTech, is the first conference in Europe to focus on profits and losses as quantum technology becomes commercialized. Register now and join us in The Hague on 29-30 October and meet may of the players in the emerging European quantum ecosystem.
