EU Selects SUPREME Consortium to Scale Up Industrial Production of Superconducting Quantum Chips

Insider Brief

• The EU-backed SUPREME project, coordinated by Finland’s VTT, aims to industrialize superconducting quantum chip fabrication over six years by creating stable, high-yield manufacturing processes accessible to European academia and companies.
• The consortium of 23 partners across eight EU Member States will develop and validate core technologies such as Josephson junctions, 3D qubit integration, and hybrid quantum devices via pilot line demonstrators for quantum computing, sensing, and communications.
• With support from the Chips Joint Undertaking, the first phase of SUPREME is expected to launch in early 2026, with the first stable quantum chip fabrication processes available to external users in 2027 via process design kits.

PRESS RELEASE – SUPREME aims to develop stable fabrication processes for European superconducting quantum chips with improved repeatability and yield. A total of 23 partners from 8 Member States will participate in this effort coordinated by VTT. The Framework Partnership Agreement for SUPREME outlines a roadmap for the industrialisation of superconducting quantum chip technologies over the next six years.

The goal of SUPREME is to develop stable fabrication processes for superconducting quantum chips and provide European academia, SMEs and large enterprises with access to these fabrication processes. This will support the European ecosystem and market development as well as the growth of startups and SMEs.

“By developing stable fabrication processes for superconducting quantum chips, we push the boundaries of what is possible in quantum computing, sensing, and communication”, says Pekka Pursula, VTT’s Director for Microeconomics and Quantum Research and coordinator of the consortium.

The SUPREME consortium will focus on developing technologies including angle evaporated and etched Josephson junctions, 3D integration methods, and hybrid quantum processes for quantum computing, sensing, and communication. These technologies will be validated through pilot line demonstrators, especially 3D-integrated qubit assemblies for large-scale Quantum processing units (QPU), travelling wave parametric amplifiers (TWPA), and superconducting nanowire single photon detectors (SNSPD).

“Stability and yield challenges in superconducting quantum device fabrication have posed significant barriers to scaling quantum technologies beyond research prototypes,” says Jorden Senior, Research Team Leader for Quantum Computing Hardware at VTT and Technical Manager of SUPREME.

“We have focused on angle evaporated and etched Josephson junctions for their optimal balance of coherence and manufacturability, while our 3D and hybrid integration approaches enable the interconnected architectures essential for fault-tolerant quantum systems. These foundational technologies will determine Europe’s competitiveness in the global quantum hardware race,” he adds.

Pilot lines are an essential step supporting technology development and market creation before industrial foundries can take up quantum chip manufacturing. The pilot line will engage in dialogue with industrial foundries and aim to facilitate technology transfer for enabling industrial manufacturing supply chain in the future.

The pilot line will provide access to European academia, SMEs, and large industries for the developed stable fabrication processes through process design kits (PDKs) that enable users to design and develop their own devices and systems. SUPREME will collaborate with design platform and chip competence centres for access to PDKs and support the building of a European ecosystem. Access for stable fabrication processes is important for unlocking innovation and supporting growth of SMEs.

“By establishing comprehensive PDKs and stable processing capability around these approaches, we are providing European quantum companies with reliable building blocks to focus on innovation rather than reinventing fabrication processes,” says Pursula.

The Chips JU has now approved the Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA), including technology roadmap for SUPREME. Once granted, the SUPREME roadmap will be executed in two phases and funded with two successive Specific Grant Agreements grants. The SUPREME pilot line is expected to kick off in early 2026 with first technologies available for external users in 2027.

The consortium combines European expertise in superconducting technology from academia, RTO’s, industrial technology developers and end-users. The consortium involves the following 23 partners from 8 Member States:

Research organisations and academia: VTT (Finland), coordinator; TNO (Netherlands); Delft University of Technology (Netherlands); Technical University of Munich (Germany); Fraunhofer Gesellschaft für Angewandte Forschung e.V. (Germany); Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Germany); Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology e.V. (Germany); The French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission – CEA (France); University of Naples Federico II (Italy); Fondazione Bruno Kessler (Italy); Institut de Física d’Altes Energies – IFAE (Spain); Silicon Austria Labs (Austria)

Large enterprises: Infineon Technologies AG (Germany); IQM Finland Oy (Finland)

Small and medium enterprises: Arctic Instruments Oy (Finland); Alice & Bob (France); QuantWare BV (Netherlands); Single Quantum BV (Netherlands); QphoX BV (Netherlands); Peak Quantum GmbH (Germany); Silent Waves (France); Amires, The Business Innovation Management Institute (Czech Republic); Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech S.L. (Spain)