Feels telling that there is a €20m budget for a certification program (very EU, but also surprising this isn't ironed out yet), and the largest single funding I can see at €24m is QKD and to prevent sovereign eavesdropping detection tech.
I feel as though quantum is just starting to get to the point of interesting but is still too early for me to get excited about as having practical application within my career time frame (I expect to be retired in ~15 years).
There is a lot of interesting work in the space (I recommend checking out the Wyant College of Optical Sciences) but you will need a deep Physics and Materials Science background. Same with semiconductor fabrication and packaging.
Naive question:
Why pile so much public money into quantum computing where there are (afaik) barely any useful algorithms, while Europe could instead invest in catching up on GPU infrastructure where there are plenty of known useful and capacity constrained use cases in academia and beyond?
GPUs are in a weird bubble captured by weird finance tricks in the private sector. They put money into that, taxpayers are going to freak out.
If they can make progress on QOA and HHL algos, that has value.
But the main thing they're trying to avoid - and this can't be understated - is dependency on US tech firms when quantum gets good enough to be practical for those sorts of problems.
Since WW2, Europe has happily been a consumer of US produced tech. The last 10 years has caused a revisiting of that view. It's an exercise for the reader to figure out the factors leading to that, and whether they think it's sensible or not.
It's part of the EU's strategy to catch up by investing in future technology instead of building out present capacity.
I think it's a mistaken strategy but it's hard to suggest anything better when you look at the measly amounts they're investing that would get them very little with existing technology. So, they're forced to gamble on vaporwave tech.
Edit: I'm specifically talking about their semiconductor and computing strategy.
> Why pile so much public money into quantum computing where there are (afaik) barely any useful algorithms, while Europe could instead invest in catching up on GPU infrastructure...
Because if you do not become competitive on the frontier you are doomed to perpetually play a game of catch-up.
GPUs require sub-7nm design, fabrication, and packaging - all of which is nonexistent in Europe today, and would take 10-20 years at which point the EU-27 would have fallen behind the frontier again.
Europe cannot be competitive in bleeding edge and legacy packaging in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is (eg. I can get 0-1% interest rate loan terms with tax holidays and subsidizes in the 9 figure range in much of Asia and the US). Europe CAN reinvest in 2D packaging, materials, and metrology (which is critical for quantum).
Europe cannot be competitive in bleeding edge fabrication in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is (eg. I can get 0-1% interest rate loan terms with tax holidays and subsidizes in the 9 figure range in much of Asia and the US). Europe CAN be competitive in legacy (28nm and above), power, and compound semiconductor fabrication (this also had a downstream impact on quantum).
Europe cannot be competitive in chip design in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is. It can work on building the next generation of tooling needed to design quantum computers and circuits.
Quantum applications of Sensing, Communication, Key Distribution, Computing, and Hardware Design are all greenfield segments that everyone is at a roughly equal starting point at. And this is what can help individual EU states regain relevance in the competitive frontier.
Feels telling that there is a €20m budget for a certification program (very EU, but also surprising this isn't ironed out yet), and the largest single funding I can see at €24m is QKD and to prevent sovereign eavesdropping detection tech.
I feel as though quantum is just starting to get to the point of interesting but is still too early for me to get excited about as having practical application within my career time frame (I expect to be retired in ~15 years).
There is a lot of interesting work in the space (I recommend checking out the Wyant College of Optical Sciences) but you will need a deep Physics and Materials Science background. Same with semiconductor fabrication and packaging.
Leetcode ain't cutting it.
Naive question: Why pile so much public money into quantum computing where there are (afaik) barely any useful algorithms, while Europe could instead invest in catching up on GPU infrastructure where there are plenty of known useful and capacity constrained use cases in academia and beyond?
GPUs are in a weird bubble captured by weird finance tricks in the private sector. They put money into that, taxpayers are going to freak out.
If they can make progress on QOA and HHL algos, that has value.
But the main thing they're trying to avoid - and this can't be understated - is dependency on US tech firms when quantum gets good enough to be practical for those sorts of problems.
Since WW2, Europe has happily been a consumer of US produced tech. The last 10 years has caused a revisiting of that view. It's an exercise for the reader to figure out the factors leading to that, and whether they think it's sensible or not.
It's part of the EU's strategy to catch up by investing in future technology instead of building out present capacity.
I think it's a mistaken strategy but it's hard to suggest anything better when you look at the measly amounts they're investing that would get them very little with existing technology. So, they're forced to gamble on vaporwave tech.
Edit: I'm specifically talking about their semiconductor and computing strategy.
> Why pile so much public money into quantum computing where there are (afaik) barely any useful algorithms, while Europe could instead invest in catching up on GPU infrastructure...
Because if you do not become competitive on the frontier you are doomed to perpetually play a game of catch-up.
GPUs require sub-7nm design, fabrication, and packaging - all of which is nonexistent in Europe today, and would take 10-20 years at which point the EU-27 would have fallen behind the frontier again.
Europe cannot be competitive in bleeding edge and legacy packaging in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is (eg. I can get 0-1% interest rate loan terms with tax holidays and subsidizes in the 9 figure range in much of Asia and the US). Europe CAN reinvest in 2D packaging, materials, and metrology (which is critical for quantum).
Europe cannot be competitive in bleeding edge fabrication in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is (eg. I can get 0-1% interest rate loan terms with tax holidays and subsidizes in the 9 figure range in much of Asia and the US). Europe CAN be competitive in legacy (28nm and above), power, and compound semiconductor fabrication (this also had a downstream impact on quantum).
Europe cannot be competitive in chip design in 2026-36 given how heavily subsidized and tightly integrated the Asian and American cluster is. It can work on building the next generation of tooling needed to design quantum computers and circuits.
Quantum applications of Sensing, Communication, Key Distribution, Computing, and Hardware Design are all greenfield segments that everyone is at a roughly equal starting point at. And this is what can help individual EU states regain relevance in the competitive frontier.