Europe’s Quantum Act Must Go Beyond Research Excellence

A new EuRyQa white paper explores how neutral-atom quantum computing reflects Europe’s broader opportunity to build quantum infrastructure, industrial capability, and technological sovereignty.

Europe has spent the last decade building one of the world’s strongest foundations in quantum science. With the European Commission preparing the proposed European Quantum Act, the key question is how quickly Europe can convert that scientific leadership into long-term technological and industrial leadership. That challenge extends across the quantum ecosystem, from computing and networking to sensing, software, control systems, and enabling infrastructure.

That’s the context in which we explored the future of neutral-atom quantum computing together with the other co-authors of a new white paper from the EuRyQa consortium. The report argues that neutral atoms have evolved from a promising research direction into one of the most credible paths toward scalable fault-tolerant quantum computing, particularly because of their combination of programmable connectivity, large qubit arrays, optical control, and potential scalability. This matters because the challenge ahead is building scalable systems, industrial capabilities, supply chains, and integrated technology stacks that can support practical quantum computing over the coming decades.

Why neutral atoms matter for Europe

Neutral atoms are particularly relevant in the European context because the platform builds on areas where Europe already has strong industrial and scientific capabilities, including photonics, precision lasers, optics, control systems, and atomic physics. The white paper argues that this creates an opportunity not only for scientific leadership, but also for technological sovereignty and supply-chain development.

Watch: Why neutral atoms are a crucial modality in quantum computing

The white paper highlights how quickly neutral-atom quantum computing has advanced. Only a few years ago, neutral atoms were viewed primarily as powerful tools for analogue quantum simulation. Today, improvements in qubit fidelity, control techniques, programmable architectures, and error correction have significantly changed that picture.

Importantly, the report argues that all core ingredients required for fault-tolerant quantum computing have now been demonstrated individually in neutral-atom systems. While major engineering and scientific challenges remain, the platform is increasingly viewed as one of the most promising routes toward systems containing millions of controllable qubits. But the most important message of the paper is not about one hardware modality winning over another; it is about the need for Europe to think in systems.

Quantum computing is often discussed in terms of qubits alone. In reality, useful quantum computers will depend on an entire stack of technologies working together: control electronics, software, compilation, orchestration, error correction, photonics, lasers, cryogenics, cloud infrastructure, and classical high-performance computing.

This is where Europe has a genuine opportunity. Europe already possesses globally competitive capabilities in photonics, precision lasers, industrial engineering, and scientific instrumentation. It also has strong academic networks and a growing ecosystem of quantum startups. The EuRyQa consortium itself reflects this model, bringing together universities, hardware companies, software developers, and control-system providers across multiple countries.

From scientific leadership to industrial strategy

The challenge now is coordination and scale. The US and China are investing aggressively in quantum technologies through long-term national programs tightly linked to industrial policy and strategic infrastructure. Europe risks fragmentation if its efforts remain distributed across short-term projects without sufficient continuity between research, industrialisation, and deployment.

That is why the debate around the European Quantum Act is so important. If designed well, the Quantum Act could help Europe move beyond supporting excellent science toward building a coherent quantum industry strategy. That means supporting not only breakthrough research, but also supply chains, manufacturing capability, workforce development, standards, infrastructure, and public-private partnerships.

The white paper strongly emphasises this point. It calls for large-scale European initiatives, long-term investment frameworks, stronger industry-academia collaboration, and the development of sovereign European supply chains for enabling technologies such as lasers, optics, electronics, and control systems. This broader ecosystem view is essential because scaling quantum computing is not simply a physics problem. It is also an engineering, software, and systems-integration challenge.

One of the most significant transitions now underway in quantum computing is the shift toward fault tolerance and quantum error correction. This dramatically increases the importance of orchestration, automation, real-time feedback, and integrated classical-quantum infrastructure. In other words, future quantum systems will not operate as isolated quantum devices. They will function as hybrid computing systems that tightly integrate quantum processors with classical computing infrastructure and sophisticated software layers. Europe is well positioned to contribute to this future precisely because of its strength in deep-tech engineering and scientific collaboration.

The report also makes another important point that deserves more attention in policy discussions: energy and infrastructure efficiency. Neutral-atom systems may offer advantages because they avoid some of the large cryogenic requirements associated with other quantum platforms. As quantum computing scales, questions around infrastructure cost, sustainability, and energy consumption will become increasingly important.

None of this means the path ahead will be easy. Significant technical hurdles remain across all quantum computing modalities. Fault-tolerant systems will require sustained advances in hardware performance, control systems, software, and manufacturing reliability. But Europe should recognize that it already possesses many of the ingredients needed to compete globally.

The next phase will depend on whether Europe can align scientific excellence with industrial strategy and long-term policy support. The Quantum Act represents an opportunity to do exactly that.

Quantum computing is becoming a geopolitical and economic infrastructure technology. Europe has the talent, research base, and industrial capabilities to help shape that future. The question is whether it can move with sufficient coordination and ambition to translate those strengths into lasting leadership.