How to ensure European competitiveness and leadership in the ever more important field of quantum technologies? The European Science-Media Hub asked Eleni Diamanti, who will speak at the upcoming workshop ‘Building European Leadership for the Second Quantum Revolution’ on 20 May, organised by the European Parliament’s Panel for the Future of Science and Technology.
Building on STOA’s previous workshop on quantum technologies, the workshop on Tuesday 20 May looks at the current state of quantum technologies and the EU’s strategic approach, including the upcoming Quantum Act, as proposed in the European Commission’s work programme for 2025.
This is vital, because the world is undergoing a second quantum revolution, promising the ability to manipulate matter at a fundamental, quantum, level. Emerging quantum technologies – including computers capable of complex calculations, sensors able to look inside cells, and eavesdrop-proof communication, can bring huge benefits to society.
Eleni Diamanti is research director at the LIP6, a research laboratory attached to Sorbonne University and the National Centre for Scientific Research in France. Her research focuses on experimental quantum cryptography and communication, and on the development of photonic resources and applications for quantum networks. She also serves as member of the European Quantum Technologies Flagship Strategic Advisory Board and is a cofounder and scientific advisor of the start-up company Welinq that specialises in quantum interconnect technology.
What changes have you seen to the quantum field over the past three years, since STOA last held a workshop on this topic?
Eleni Diamanti: The field is evolving fast on all fronts. From an academic research point of view, there is steady progress in all quantum technology pillars with significant milestones being achieved regularly. There is now massive investment in the deployment of infrastructure for quantum computing, communication, sensing, and chip manufacturing at a European but also global level.
The quantum industry ecosystem is also being restructured in interesting ways, forming an extremely stimulating and constantly evolving landscape. It is important to balance these scientific and technological advances with suitable benchmarks and expectations from governments and the private sector to ensure short-term societal and economic impacts.
Quantum technologies are often considered a key part of the future of the digital transition. Could you give some examples of future applications you see as particularly promising?
Eleni Diamanti: I believe that quantum technologies have a true disruptive potential across a large number of sectors and that we cannot fully predict at this point all possible applications. Cybersecurity is clearly a domain where impact can be expected in a broad sense, including on sensitive data in finance, health, and critical infrastructure.
Material science should also be among the first fields to benefit from the expected quantum computational advantage. But many more use cases are worth exploring and are presently pursued with very promising results.
Will quantum computers allow for enhanced AI systems, or could advanced AI obviate some of the use cases for quantum, as for instance Sir Demis Hassabis has suggested?
Eleni Diamanti: I don’t believe that advanced AI will remove the interest for achieving a quantum computational speed-up. Quantum information processing can open new frontiers for AI research, providing access to data and insights into learning systems that would otherwise be inaccessible. The potential synergy between quantum computing and AI is deep and will surely evolve significantly in the coming years: it is very much still work in progress.
Can you explain the work you do at Welinq? What motivated you to start the company?
Eleni Diamanti: Welinq is building quantum interconnection solutions for quantum computing data centres and long-distance quantum communication based on its unique highly-efficient quantum memory technology. The company was born from a wish to leverage the combined expertise of all the co-founders in this technology and in quantum information protocols in distributed architectures, to scale up quantum computing and lead the way in the emerging convergence between quantum networking and quantum computing.
I am convinced this will be a game-changer in the next few years in the field and I am very happy that Welinq is offering its disruptive technology to make this happen.
What can be done to ensure EU leadership and competitiveness on quantum technologies?
Eleni Diamanti: The EU has a unique position in quantum technologies. It has established strong, long-standing scientific leadership in the field driven by sustained support to basic research, combined in recent years with ambitious national programmes in several member states and the emergence of an extremely dynamic industrial ecosystem. At the same time, all this is evolving within a regulatory framework that fosters innovation while also respecting fundamental European values.
I think this is precious and we need to preserve it by all means, especially in our current very unstable and uncertain international geopolitical context. But to withstand the ever-increasing competition, we need to ensure continuous support to fundamental science, scale up our quantum infrastructure, and strengthen investments to European companies. A cohesive and unified EU quantum strategy will be key to achieving these goals.
Tuesday 20 May 2025: STOA workshop ‘Building European Leadership for the Second Quantum Revolution’, live webstreamed.