French National Quantum Update: July 2025
Executive Summary
In July 2025, it’s become more evident that all echelons of French society are beginning to not just understand the impact of quantum technology, but act on that understanding to cement French leadership in what is becoming the quantum era.
French President Emmanuel Macron is raising national defense targets amid geopolitical uncertainty, while doubling down on leadership in disruptive technologies like AI and quantum. His administration has reaffirmed support for deeptech through the launch of a Franco-British engineering lab and by maintaining the integrity of the €54 billion France 2030 investment plan.
French quantum firms, including Quandela, Pasqal, and Quobly, are expanding partnerships across Europe and North America to build scalable, sovereign, and application-ready technologies. Research efforts continue to break new ground, including record-setting carbon qubit coherence and a roadmap to quantum advantage co-authored by IBM and Pasqal. Meanwhile, France is promoting scientific excellence through awards and events like the France Quantum 2025 conference, which drew over 1,000 participants to Paris.
Links to these stories — and more — are below.
Policy
Macron to boost French defence targets, citing rise of global threats
French President Emmanuel Macron is set to announce new French defence budgetary targets on Sunday, in the face of a menacing Russia and a potential US disengagement from Europe, his office said. France’s defence budget has already increased sharply since Macron took power, and is projected to rise from 50.5 billion currently to 67 billion euros in 2030. In an interview, Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said France was mostly worried about falling behind in “disruptive technologies” including artificial intelligence and quantum technology.
President Macron launches Imperial-CNRS joint engineering laboratory
The President of France, Emmanuel Macron, celebrated the launch of a new joint engineering laboratory between Imperial and France’s CNRS. President Macron visited Imperial’s South Kensington campus to meet the engineers who will lead the new laboratory and spoke about the growing UK-French scientific partnerships. The event formed part of the schedule of the state visit for the French President.
France 2030: There Will Be New On Space And Quantum
France’s 2030 54 billion euro investment plan appears relatively untouched by recent budget cuts. The Planning Department has even just announced a new research program.
Business
Quandela And Mila Develop Hybrid Artificial Intelligence And Quantum Computing Technologies
Quandela, a European leader in photonic quantum computing, and Mila, the Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, announce a partnership to explore the potential of hybrid technologies combining machine learning and quantum computing. This strategic collaboration will focus on the development and evaluation of innovative quantum machine learning (QML) models, positioning both organizations at the forefront of this new technological frontier.
How Quandela Is Racing To Make Quantum Computing Practical
While quantum computing giants build massive and costly systems, Quandela Co-Founder and COO Valérian Giesz explains why the French startup’s photonic approach is more efficient. Quandela has already sold quantum computers to European clients and is partnering with NVIDIA on AI integration.
Quobly and Inria Partner on Integrated, Scalable Silicon Qubit Architecture
Quobly, a pioneer in quantum microelectronics, and Inria, France’s national institute for research in digital science and technology, announce a strategic partnership to align silicon-based quantum hardware with advanced control software. This alliance aims to structure a sovereign value chain by combining software excellence with hardware engineering. By expanding its R&D to include low-level software layers – such as those found in embedded, industrial, and operating systems – Quobly reaffirms its ambition to build a fully integrated, fault-tolerant, and scalable quantum computing architecture.
French-German Cooperation Advances Europe’s Quantum Computer Lucy
Two leading technology companies from Germany and France are joining forces to help shape Europe’s future in quantum computing: attocube systems GmbH, a company of the WITTENSTEIN group and specialist in nanotechnology, and Quandela, a pioneer in photonic quantum computer technology. The companies have been working together on the development of the European quantum computer Lucy. Representatives of the owners, Management Board and senior management of the WITTENSTEIN group took advantage of a visit to Paris to meet with the Quandela team and assess the status of the joint project.
Pasqal, IBM Researchers Offer a Measured Path Toward Quantum Advantage
A new study from IBM and Pasqal outlines a rigorous framework for defining and demonstrating “quantum advantage” — which is often defined as the point at which quantum computers perform useful tasks more efficiently or accurately than classical systems. The paper doesn’t claim this milestone has been reached but lays out a practical and testable roadmap to get there.
From resonances to quantum sensors: the medicine of the future starts today
In Thales laboratories in Palaiseau, quantum physics promises diagnostic devices hundreds of times more accurate, as small as a pen, capable of reading electrical discharges in the brain.
HiQuTe Diamond raises 7.5M€ to bring technological diamonds into the industrial era
French deeptech HiQuTe Diamond, specialist in the manufacturing of very high quality diamonds for technological applications, announces a fundraising of 7.5 million euros. This strategic financing, in particular from the Ile-de-France Reindustrialization Fund (initiated by the Île-de-France region and operated by Innovacom), from the French Tech Seed fund managed on behalf of the State by Bpifrance as part of France 2030, TF Participations, Socadif and iXcore, will allow the company to industrialize its production in Île-de-France and meet growing needs in power electronics, quantum computing and new generation sensors.
Research
Carbon Qubits Break Record for Longevity in Quantum Circuits
A team of researchers report they have demonstrated microsecond-scale coherence times in a carbon nanotube circuit driven by cavity photons—showing longer-lived quantum states than any previously recorded for carbon quantum dots and surpassing similar systems built with silicon.
The study, published in Nature Communications by a team that included scientists from C12 Quantum Electronics and several French research institutions, reports coherence times of 1.3 microseconds in a suspended carbon nanotube double quantum dot setup integrated within a microwave cavity. That figure represents a roughly 100-fold improvement over previous carbon-based implementations and a tenfold improvement over similar silicon quantum dot devices.
The PEPR Quantum congratulates its award-winning members
The PEPR Quantum congratulated its award-winning members. Igor Ferrier-Barbut won CNRS Bronze Medal 2025. Ferrier-Barbut is a CNRS researcher at the Charles Fabry Laboratory (LCF, CNRS/Institut d’Optique Graduate School). He and his team are working to create devices capable of storing or transforming quantum information carried by light. Christopher Bäuerle won an ERC Advanced Grant 2024. Bäuerle is CNRS Research Director at Institut Néel and coordinator of the PEPR Quantique project eQubitFly, aimed at developing a new quantum architecture by exploiting electronic flying qubits.
The French Academy of sciences welcomes the election of one of its members to the French Academy. Physicist Alain Aspect, director of research emeritus at the CNRS Charles Fabry Laboratory(CNRS/ Institut d’optique Graduate School), winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics for his experimental work on quantum entanglement, contributing to today’s quantum technological revolution, and a member of the Académie des Sciences since 2001, joins the thirty-three “Immortals” in the chair of Mr. René de Obaldia, French playwright, novelist and poet (F22).
Education and Events
Video Highlights of Quantum of France Quantum 2025 – After Movie
Organizers of France Quantum Conference 2025 published an After Movie in July that featured some highlights of the event. The conference, held in June, at Station F in Paris, is a major event focused on internationalizing quantum technologies. It’s the fourth edition of the conference and drew more than 1,000 participants and 60 international expert.
Pushing quantum limits: A Canada–France collaboration on nonlocal boxes
What began as a master’s thesis has grown into a dynamic international collaboration that pushes the boundaries of quantum research. Led by Professor Anne Broadbent, this Canada–France partnership is advancing science while offering students transformative global experiences.
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Topics
Matt Swayne
With a several-decades long background in journalism and communications, Matt Swayne has worked as a science communicator for an R1 university for more than 12 years, specializing in translating high tech and deep tech for the general audience. He has served as a writer, editor and analyst at The Quantum Insider since its inception. In addition to his service as a science communicator, Matt also develops courses to improve the media and communications skills of scientists and has taught courses.
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MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLE
Quandela
Quandela is a French startup that specializes in photonic quantum computing by providing modular, scalable, and energy-efficient photonic quantum computers, accessible both on the cloud and on premise. They provide prototyping services with their Perceval simulator alongside their general purpose chips optimized chips, and development of algorithms and protocols which provide photonic solutions for applications ranging from pharmaceutical and material design, to quantum machine learning, networking and optimization.
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PASQAL
PASQAL’s quantum computers control neutral atoms with optical tweezers using lasers to manipulate quantum registers with up to a few hundred qubits. Location in Boston MA.
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Quobly
Quobly, formerly Siquance, was founded in 2022 to develop and commercialize a universal large-scale quantum computer using proven semiconductor-industry processes. Quobly specializes in silicon-based quantum computing, focusing on scalable quantum processors. It develops silicon spin qubit QPUs using FD‑SOI semiconductor manufacturing to address challenges such as high‑complexity simulations in energy systems, drug discovery, and materials. It emphasizes industrial manufacturability and cost efficiency, working with RTOs and semiconductor partners (e.g., CEA‑Leti, CNRS, STMicroelectronics) to deliver fault-tolerant quantum systems capable of tackling real-world problems now intractable for classical supercomputers.
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IBM
IBM is an iconic technology pioneer founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company and officially renamed International Business Machines Corporation in 1924. Beyond foundational computing, IBM possesses a deep legacy in aerospace and defense from building the guidance computers and Instrument Unit for NASA's historic Apollo missions to partnering with Airbus on CIMON, the first AI assistant on the ISS.
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CNRS
The French National Centre for Scientific Research is among the world's leading research institutions. Its scientists explore the living world, matter, the Universe, and the functioning of human societies in order to meet the major challenges of today and tomorrow. Internationally recognised for the excellence of its scientific research, the CNRS is a reference in the world of research and development, as well as for the general public.
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NVIDIA
NVIDIA Corporation is an American multinational technology company and a global player in accelerated computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI). Founded in 1993, the company pushes the aerospace frontier with the Space-1 Vera Rubin Module, a platform for orbital data centers that delivers massive AI-compute Space Computing. This NVIDIA technology enables satellites and autonomous spacecraft to process and fuse sensor data rapidly Space Computing.
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C12 Quantum Electronics
C12QE uses carbon nanotubes as the fundamental building blocks for a scalable quantum computer.
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