The Limits of Autonomy: Realigning Quantum Strategy

On July 2, 2025, the European Commission released its Quantum Strategy, outlining the EU’s vision to secure a leading position in the global quantum race. The strategy emphasises quantum’s dual-use potential and aligns with broader EU policy frameworks, including the Competitiveness Compass, the Preparedness Union Strategy, the Niinistö Report, the Draghi Report, and the International Digital Strategy. Structured around five pillars: research and innovation, quantum infrastructures, a strengthened EU quantum ecosystem, integration of space and dual-use quantum technologies, and the development of quantum skills (Page 3 of the strategy), the strategy presents an ambitious roadmap.

Economic Complexity and the Myth of Uniform Capability

The strategy’s core tone however underplays a critical reality. These pillars will only be fully effective if the EU embraces not just internal coordination among Member States, but also deep and strategic cross-border collaboration. Quantum technologies have emerged from global scientific interdependence. Historically, when strong ideas meet the right tools and political will, transformation follows. For Europe, mobilising resources at scale and recognising that international collaboration is essential could accelerate breakthroughs. Quantum computing is inherently distributed and global, its progress relies on shared knowledge and partnerships, even as it raises valid concerns over security, intellectual property, and strategic autonomy. No single actor will hold all the keys, making governance, openness, and trust essential to ensuring that quantum innovation is both powerful and principled.

The strategy rightly highlights that, despite significant national and EU-level investments, Europe’s quantum research landscape remains fragmented (Page 2 of the strategy), spread across Member States and funding instruments, leading to duplication, gaps in critical priority areas, and competition for limited talent. However, this argument softens a key insight from the theory of economic complexity: the capacity of a country or region to lead in advanced technologies like quantum computing is deeply tied to its organisational, industrial, and institutional infrastructure.

As quantum technologies grow in complexity, they increasingly depend on distributed expertise and deep institutional coordination, making them difficult to replicate, but also creating opportunities for those who can align their capabilities. This reinforces the importance of having diverse yet complementary sets of skills and knowledge that mutually reinforce one another. Concepts like product space and relatedness networks offer a useful lens to understand why certain regions emerge as hubs for complex industries, and where new technologies are most likely to take root. This should not be seen as a weakness for Europe. On the contrary, it suggests that productive capabilities must be unevenly distributed across regions in order to allow for differentiated yet coordinated contributions, leveraging regional strengths toward a common European goal (ECIPE Quantum Study, forthcoming 2025).

Premature Regulation Risks Undermining Innovation

At the same time, the evolving nature of quantum technology suggests that a regulatory-first approach, such as the proposed Quantum Act (Page 15 of the strategy), may be premature. The EU’s experience with the AI Act offers a cautionary tale: initial regulatory enthusiasm ultimately required revisions, while also fuelling debates about tech sovereignty and competitiveness. Regulation can only support innovation if it is grounded in a clear understanding of how a technology is likely to evolve, something that, in the case of quantum, remains uncertain.

Europe risks stifling its own tech industry by over-regulating it too early. Fragmentation persists not just because of institutional gaps, but because Member States continue to prioritise national champions and protect their own innovation ecosystems, an instinct that, paradoxically, may be necessary for building foundational quantum capabilities.

The strategic goal should be a coordinated European effort, but one that allows Member States to cultivate strengths in their own domains. Imposing legislation too soon could lead to uneven enforcement, varied levels of political buy-in, and further disillusionment. Some capitals may view it as overreach by the Commission; others may argue Brussels is not doing enough. With 27 countries, each with its own priorities and capacities, coordination must remain flexible, especially as quantum intersects unpredictably with other emerging domains. Instead, the EU should adopt an adaptive governance model, one that enables regular review and recalibration rather than prescribing how a technology should develop. The EU’s precautionary stance should serve to protect against systemic risk, not to isolate Europe from technological dynamism.

The Limits of Europeanisation in a Global Supply Chain

The strategy notes that under the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, Europe is already deploying its first prototypes of quantum computing systems across several Member States (Page 6 of the strategy). This early deployment serves two main objectives: first, to catalyse a sovereign, competitive European quantum industry by fostering an early market for hardware and software suppliers; and second, to develop the internal market by scaling use cases and growing the user base. The strategy also sets an ambitious goal: to position Europe to acquire next-generation quantum computers primarily from EU-based providers, with the aim of scaling these platforms to reach around 100 error-corrected qubits per system by 2030 (Page 6 of the strategy). However, the tone again leans toward a vision of Europeanisation, positioning quantum as a domestically contained effort, rather than acknowledging its inherently global and collaborative character. At this stage of technological maturity, nearly every key component in a quantum computer is sourced internationally.

While the ambition to build a European quantum supply chain is commendable, the reality is that not all EU Member States are positioned as suppliers. A closer look reveals that capabilities have remained concentrated: Germany, Italy, France, and Sweden in single-photon detectors; Germany in laser diodes; Italy and France in microcontrollers; Finland and the Netherlands in dilution refrigerators; Sweden in high electron mobility transistor amplifiers; the Netherlands in optical lithography tools; Germany in dielectric glass windows; and France in fiber phase modulators. Of course, over time this may evolve, but these concentrations underscore a broader point: any effective quantum strategy must build on comparative advantage, not assume equal capability. The notion of a fully European supply chain for quantum communication components, devices, and systems may be aspirational, but it risks becoming unrealistic without a clear-eyed understanding of existing gaps.

The Data Deficit in Europe’s Quantum Ambitions

The strategy also sets a clear objective: to deploy a fully operational quantum communication network by 2030 as a foundational step toward a federated Quantum Internet (Page 10 of the strategy). In parallel, however, the advancement of quantum computing, especially in fields like quantum machine learning, introduces new risks to secure communication infrastructure, as well as new requirements for computational efficiency. A persistent bottleneck in quantum machine learning is the efficient preparation and encoding of classical data into quantum systems, a step often underestimated in both technical and strategic planning. This is where the EU faces a systemic disadvantage.

The EU lacks large, centralised pools of high-quality, domain-specific data. Both public and private. Fragmented data governance regimes across Member States, strict but inconsistently applied data privacy laws, and a lack of incentives for cross-border data sharing all contribute to this shortfall. Without access to vast, well-labelled datasets, the development and training of useful quantum algorithms will be constrained. Algorithmic research alone cannot solve the problem if the training environment is starved of data. Moreover, efforts to retain strict data localisation policies, while well-intentioned from a privacy standpoint, further limit opportunities for collaborative research and algorithmic benchmarking at scale.

Funding Gaps and the Illusion of New Money: The Real Issue is Undercapitalisation

Ultimately, many of these challenges converge on a single issue: funding. For example, the strategy envisions leveraging AI Factories (Page 7 of the strategy) to support quantum computing applications. Yet the plans to develop these factories were announced in early 2024, the associated development of supercomputers has been going on since years, and the Chips Act, under which the EU plans to launch six quantum pilot lines (Page 13 of the strategy) through the Chips Joint Undertaking, has been in force since 2023. In short, they are continuations of existing programs. However, the actual fresh funding available for AI Factories, supercomputing infrastructure, and semiconductor capabilities is significantly lower than headline figures suggest. Public announcements often create inflated expectations that do not reflect underlying fiscal realities, particularly prominent in the case of quantum technologies, which remain fundamentally infrastructure and investment intensive.

The EU funding in these domains is drawn from the Multiannual Financial Framework (2021–2027), the budget envelope for the current seven-year period. Within this framework, funds are already earmarked for various policy priorities, and flexibility is limited. Moreover, EU-level funding is generally intended to be catalytic, requiring national co-financing and private sector participation to realise full implementation. This makes strategic coherence and coordinated investment across Member States all the more essential. A mismatch between strategic ambition and financial capacity risks undermining credibility, not only of the quantum strategy itself, but of broader EU goals for technological leadership.

The strategy rightly acknowledges that the funding gap becomes particularly acute in the later stages of development, putting EU-based quantum startups at risk of acquisition by non-European investors (Page 13 of the strategy). This, it warns, could lead to the loss of intellectual property, critical technologies, talent, and strategic autonomy. While these risks are valid, the deeper issue is not the threat of acquisition itself, it is the undercapitalisation of Europe’s quantum ecosystem. The total value of venture capital, equity, and debt funding raised by quantum startups in the EU is dwarfed by global competitors: the figure is over nine and eight times higher in Canada and Israel, nearly six and four times greater in the UK and Australia, more than three times higher in the US, and more than double in China and Switzerland.

The problem is not that European startups are inherently weaker or smaller, it is that they lack access to the kind of sustained, risk-tolerant financial backing needed to scale. Strong venture capital ecosystems are directly linked to the emergence of world-leading technology firms. Without similar financial firepower, EU startups face structural disadvantages, regardless of their technical excellence. The strategy’s implication that acquisitions are the problem is misplaced. In a healthy innovation ecosystem, acquisitions can be a sign of success, validating technological value, providing liquidity, and enabling growth. The real failure is when promising startups have no choice but to sell because local funding is inadequate, not because their technology lacks merit. Framing acquisitions as a strategic loss while failing to address the funding deficit only distracts from the core issue: Europe must build a stronger, more integrated investment ecosystem that matches its ambitions in quantum technology.

Institutional Bottlenecks and the Need for Responsive Innovation Models

Europe’s science and technology efforts are supported through flagship innovation programs such as the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), the European Innovation Council (EIC), and the European Investment Bank (EIB), all of which aim to back deep-tech startups and scale-ups, including in the quantum space. While these instruments have made important contributions, their structure and incentive models differ significantly from those seen in more venture-capital-driven ecosystems, such as in the US. In the EU, innovation is primarily orchestrated through the European Commission, with top-down funding schemes that often lack the agility, risk tolerance, and speed of execution needed for emerging technologies like quantum.

As a result, many promising projects are underfunded, overregulated, or burdened by administrative complexity. The timeframes for funding cycles are frequently misaligned with the long development timelines required for frontier science. It is not uncommon for projects to be discontinued after a single year, an interval far too short to deliver on the complex and often long-horizon promises, such as of quantum research. This undermines not only continuity but also investor and talent confidence.

Rhetoric vs. Reality in International Collaboration

While the strategy acknowledges the importance of international cooperation, identifying a set of “like-minded” countries aligned with the EU on broader technology and trade policies (Page 21 of the strategy), it remains vague on how such partnerships will evolve. It references joint quantum research initiatives with Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Canada, and outlines ambitions to collaborate on concrete applications such as new materials.

Despite a narrative that the EU will remain embedded in global partnerships, actual scientific collaboration patterns tell a more complex story. In EU Member States such as Austria, Finland, Denmark, over 90 percent of collaborations are with foreign partners. Within Europe, China’s most intensive quantum-related ties are with Finland and Denmark, countries known for their academic strength and leadership in quantum hardware and photonics, On the transatlantic front, one of the strongest bilateral relationships is between the US and the Netherlands. More broadly, Germany occupies strong position in the global quantum network, and Ireland emerges as having the most mature quantum ecosystem. This reinforces the need for EU policymakers to ground partnership strategies not only in ideology, but in an understanding of the scientific and industrial realities that already shape quantum collaboration worldwide (ECIPE Quantum Study, forthcoming 2025).

The underlying premise of these efforts, as per the strategy appears to be ensuring that quantum technologies developed within Europe remain accessible, secure, and free from restrictive third-country export controls (Page 17 of the strategy), while also aligning with EU defence and security priorities. But this logic is self-defeating. The EU itself increasingly uses export controls as a policy tool, including in the context of dual-use technologies. This reinforces the very cycle of techno-nationalism that the strategy implies it wants to avoid. Moreover, the belief that such controls can meaningfully safeguard technological sovereignty ignores the dense interdependencies that define the quantum ecosystem. No country can firewall its way to leadership in a field where progress is built on international collaboration, knowledge flows, and shared standards.

The Talent Bottleneck and the Cost of Geopoliticising Innovation

Ultimately, at its core, aligning with the realistic narrative, the strategy’s long-term success hinges on a critical enabler: talent (Page 21 of the strategy). There is growing recognition that the current talent pool in quantum is insufficient to meet the increasing demands of a rapidly expanding research and innovation ecosystem. The field requires highly specialised expertise, often backed by years of academic and technical training and the current supply of deep quantum skills falls far short of demand. Startups, research institutions, and major tech firms are now competing for the same limited talent, often to the detriment of smaller players who lack the resources to attract or retain top minds. Addressing this challenge requires more than training programs; it requires an ecosystem that separates scientific progress and innovation from excessive geopolitical framing. Technologies must be allowed to evolve based on merit, collaboration, and real-world application, not ideological positioning.

Importantly, the EU’s goal should not be to secure domestic ownership of every quantum capability, as the strategy repeatedly implies. Not all quantum applications will deliver the strategic advantage often promised, particularly when classical alternatives remain more mature, scalable, or cost-effective. Quantum technologies are not a replacement for existing systems; they are complementary functionalities that, when integrated wisely, can enhance performance across domains. What matters is sustained access to key capabilities, through ecosystems, partnerships, and shared knowledge. In this light, information-sharing among allies and partners can often be more feasible, and just as valuable, as formal investment coordination. This pragmatic, distributed model of innovation is noticeably underemphasised in the strategy. For Europe to lead in quantum, it must embrace openness, build on comparative strengths, and invest in talent not just as a resource, but as the foundation for a more connected and credible technological future.