Following its June move to strengthen cybersecurity posture with the adoption of post-quantum cryptography, the European Commission this week rolled out its Quantum Strategy, aiming to position Europe as a global quantum leader by 2030. The plan focuses on building a resilient, sovereign quantum ecosystem to boost startups and turn scientific breakthroughs into market-ready solutions, while keeping Europe at the forefront of research. The Strategy zeroes in on five priority areas, including research and innovation, quantum infrastructure, ecosystem development, space and dual-use technologies, and workforce skills.
The Quantum Strategy includes launching the Quantum Europe Research and Innovation Initiative, a joint EU and Member States’ effort to support foundational research and develop applications in key public and industrial sectors. It also establishes a quantum design facility and six quantum chips pilot lines, backed by up to €50 million in public funding, to transform scientific prototypes into manufacturable products.
The effort also includes the launch of a pilot facility for the European Quantum Internet; expansion of the network of Quantum Competence Clusters across the EU and establishing the European Quantum Skills Academy in 2026; and developing a Quantum Technology Roadmap in Space with the European Space Agency and contributing to the European Armament Technological Roadmap.
“With Quantum science advancing rapidly, we are on the verge of some of the most transformative scientific and technological breakthroughs,” Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for technological sovereignty, security, and democracy, said in a media statement. “Europe has always been at the forefront of quantum science, with a strong record of innovation and discovery. We have everything we need to become a leading quantum continent, from a highly skilled workforce to a robust research infrastructure.”
As the global quantum race intensifies and moves from the lab to real-world applications, Europe must maintain its leadership. She added, “That’s why we are launching the Quantum Europe Strategy – to bring together Member States, industry, academia, and society to unlock the full potential of quantum technologies.”
The Quantum Strategy document recognizes that the European quantum field exhibits unique characteristics: quantum technologies remain largely emergent, with many of their core components – both hardware and software – still at an early stage of maturity. Developing them further through a traditional, linear path from fundamental science to the market would require 10 to 15 years. To speed up the process, the tailored technology lifecycle implementation logic will be put in place, integrating research, innovation, infrastructure, and early market creation in a continuous loop.
A lifecycle approach is particularly vital in the European ecosystem, as there are still major scientific and engineering roadblocks across quantum domains that must be addressed and converted into tangible technologies. Europe must not only solve these problems but also rapidly transition the resulting solutions to market-ready applications before global competitors lock in strategic dominance.
To address the scientific and engineering roadblocks, the Quantum Europe Research and Innovation Initiative will support targeted science and technology (S&T) efforts focusing on resolving current key S&T challenges that limit progress across all quantum domains. These will be addressed mainly through top-down S&T calls complementing the usual bottom-up S&T ones. Also, market-disruptive research and innovation activities, and targeted actions for maturing specific quantum and enabling technologies. The goal is to de-risk quantum innovation and accelerate the transfer of major research discoveries for industrial uptake.
The Strategy aims to boost the share of global private funding that European quantum companies receive, currently at around 5%, to stimulate the growth of European startups and scaleups and promote the uptake of European quantum solutions by European industries. Quantum technologies will revolutionize addressing complex challenges, from pharmaceutical breakthroughs to securing critical infrastructure. They will open new opportunities for the EU’s industrial competitiveness and tech sovereignty, with strong dual-use potential for defence and security.
By 2040, the sector is expected to create thousands of highly skilled jobs across the EU and exceed a global value of €155 billion.
Through initiatives like the EuroQCI and the Quantum Internet, the EU is building fully autonomous and trusted quantum communication infrastructures, which will protect critical data flows, secure public communications and critical infrastructures, and strengthen Europe’s internal security in line with the ProtectEU strategy.
The EuroQCI will serve as a secure quantum communications network covering the entire EU, including its overseas territories. It will leverage quantum technologies developed under the EU-funded Quantum Technologies Flagship, with key contributions from the Horizon 2020 OPENQKD project. The Quantum Internet initiative complements EuroQCI by preparing the future generation of quantum networks. It lays the foundation for distributed quantum computing and sensing, and ultra-secure data sharing.
The Quantum Strategy detailed that terrestrial quantum communication networks are being used to implement and test QKD in real-world environments. Pilot projects include secure hospital-to-hospital transmission of medical data, encrypted communication between government institutions, and QKD links for critical infrastructure like power grid control centres. They are demonstrating how QKD can safeguard essential public services and national operations.
To support this deployment, the EU is leveraging a fully European supply chain of quantum components, devices, and systems. A comprehensive QKD testing and evaluation facility is also being deployed, offering pre-certification environments for QKD components and preparing for their integration into end-to-end systems and network architectures.
Moreover, this activity is closely related to EU cybersecurity policies, such as the NIS2 Directive, the upcoming review of the Cybersecurity Act, and ENISA’s Quantum-Safe Cryptography roadmap to ensure that quantum communication, sensing, and computing infrastructures adopt defence-grade security measures, supply-chain integrity checks, and incident-response capabilities from the outset.
The Quantum Strategy mentioned that the EU is now developing a network of mobile and stationary quantum gravimeters, which allow for the detection of subsurface features located up to several tens of kilometres underground, including water reservoirs, gas deposits, mineral resources, magma chambers, or buried infrastructure. They are particularly valuable for monitoring underground changes over time, supporting applications in earth science and geophysics, climate science, natural hazard prevention, civil engineering, and strategic applications in defence and civil protection, such as the detection of underground man-made structures and the monitoring of critical infrastructure.
Under the Quantum Flagship, in the next three to five years, a network of ground-based gravimeters will be deployed across Europe, complemented by gravimeters embarked on high-altitude platforms. In parallel, the EU is planning to launch a first quantum space gravimetry Pathfinder Flight after 2030. The integration of quantum gravimetry under IRIS2 follow-up missions will equally be explored. These efforts could pave the way for a full-scale network of ground, airborne, and space-based gravimeters for Earth observation purposes, supporting scientific research and strategic applications, including those with dual-use potential.
To further advance its strategic positioning and planning in quantum sensing technologies and metrology, and testing infrastructures, the EU will develop a coordinated European Quantum Sensing, Measurement and Testing Roadmap and support relevant standardization efforts in collaboration with metrology institutes and the Member States. A major aim will also be to ensure European strategic autonomy through secure and compliant supply chains for critical sensing components and systems.
Going forward, the Commission will work closely with the Member States and the European quantum community, including academia, startups, industrial actors, and innovation stakeholders and their representatives, to turn the Strategy’s objectives into reality.
A high-level advisory board will bring together European quantum scientists and technology experts, including European Nobel Prize Laureates in quantum. It will provide independent strategic guidance on the implementation of the Quantum Europe Strategy.
The Strategy will be followed by a Quantum Act proposal, expected in 2026, which will further strengthen the quantum ecosystem and the industrialization efforts by incentivising Member States and companies, investors and researchers to invest in (pilot) production facilities, under the umbrella of large-scale EU-wide national or regional initiatives.
