France National Quantum Update: October 2026
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
France expanded its quantum technology ties with Vietnam in October, combining a business delegation with agreements covering computing infrastructure, research and workforce development. The activity highlighted international expansion alongside efforts at home to integrate quantum processors with conventional computing and improve error correction.
Business France organized a three-day delegation to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City involving Quandela, Quobly, QPerfect and Thales. Quandela signed a two-year memorandum of understanding with Vietnam’s FPT Corporation to explore cooperation across quantum research, applications, training and infrastructure.
Separately, Vietnamese company Quanova selected Quandela’s MosaiQ system for a quantum research and entrepreneurship program at Quang Trung University in Quy Nhon. Supported by Nam A Bank, the project is intended to deploy Vietnam’s first quantum computer.
European computing sovereignty remained another focus. Quobly and SiPearl agreed to explore combining silicon-spin quantum processors with European-designed conventional processors, linking quantum hardware development to the continent’s broader computing infrastructure.
Alice & Bob reported progress from the first phase of France’s PROQCIMA program, which targets prototypes supporting 1,000 logical qubits by 2032. The company also demonstrated decoding of its quantum error-correction architecture on graphics processors using NVIDIA NVQLink, although the proof of concept used synthetic data. Quandela outlined a separate demonstrator connecting photonic quantum processors with NVIDIA infrastructure.
Pasqal reported unexpected behavior in a quantum magnet studied with its 256-qubit processor, in a regime where leading classical simulation methods disagreed. The findings remain a preprint. The company also introduced an AI-assisted workflow for cloud experiments and secured information-security certification.
Research and ecosystem development continued through the Franco-American Quantint quantum-networking project and an investor event featuring 12 startups originating in CNRS laboratories, adding research collaboration and financing opportunities to the month’s commercial activity.
This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the news that affected France’s quantum community in September 2026.
Policy
France-Vietnam Quantum Delegation (Phái đoàn Lĩnh vực Lượng tử Pháp-Việt Nam)
From 19 to 21 October 2026, a French delegation of quantum technology companies will travel to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for a three-day programme of meetings, presentations and networking with Vietnamese stakeholders. Organised by Business France in partnership with the Embassy of France and local partners, the delegation brings together leading French players in photonic, silicon-spin and fault-tolerant quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum software, including Quandela, Quobly, QPerfect and Thales.
FPT Corporation and Quandela, the company behind the world’s most powerful photonic quantum computer, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen quantum technology research, integration, workforce development, and applications in Vietnam. The signing ceremony took place during the first French business delegation dedicated to quantum technology to visit Vietnam, organized by Business France. The event was witnessed by Ms. Éléonore Caroit, French Minister Delegate for Francophonie, International Partnerships and French Nationals Abroad; Mr. Didier Le Bret, French Ambassador to Vietnam; and Prof. Dr. Tran Tuan Anh, Vice President of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology.
Vietnam Quantum Expert Urges Closer EU Ties to Build National Capabilities
Vietnam should make European partnerships a central part of its quantum technology development, using joint research, specialist training and access to computing infrastructure to build domestic capabilities, a Vietnamese expert has proposed… Quang recommended closer ties with France, Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and Spain, including postgraduate training and pilot applications in banking, energy and cybersecurity. Connecting domestic laboratories with remotely accessible European quantum computers could reduce Vietnam’s initial infrastructure costs.
Quantum and European Sovereignty With Olivier Ezratty
Olivier Ezratty is an author, lecturer and consultant who has specialised in quantum technologies since 2018. He is notably the author of the reference book Comprendre l’informatique quantique (Understanding Quantum Computing), which he regularly updates, and hosts two podcasts: Quantum, which has covered news from the sector since September 2019, and Decode Quantum, a series of interviews with experts in the field. He is today one of the most widely recognised figures in the French quantum technology ecosystem and one of the leading voices in making these technologies accessible to the general public.
Business
Quobly and SiPearl Partner to Explore European CPU-QPU Integration For Sovereign Quantum Computing
Quobly, a French quantum computing company developing industrially scalable quantum computers based on silicon spin qubits, and SiPearl, the designer of European high-performance energy-efficient CPUs for sovereign supercomputing, AI and data centre, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to combine their respective technologies and expertise towards a sovereign quantum computing solution, bringing together SiPearl’s CPU technology and Quobly’s quantum processors.
Alice & Bob Decodes LDPC-Cat Codes on GPUs With NVIDIA NVQLink
Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, today shared results from implementing GPUs to decode its LDPC-cat architecture using NVIDIA NVQLink. The proof of concept using synthetic data is the first time LDPC-cat codes have been decoded on GPUs via the low-latency, high throughput NVQLink architecture, and moves the company a step closer to fast, scalable error correction for its cat-qubit quantum computers.
Alice & Bob Reports Cat-Qubit Progress in French Quantum Computing Program
Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, today shares a summary of results from Phase 1 of PROQCIMA, the French government’s quantum computing programme. Led by the French Defense Innovation Agency (AID) and the Direction générale de l’Armement, PROQCIMA aims to develop two prototypes of universal quantum computers, each capable of supporting 1,000 logical qubits, ready for industrialisation by 2032. The programme is structured as a 10-year competition: three candidates will continue after the first four years, with two ultimately selected to continue beyond year eight.
Pasqal’s Neutral-Atom Processor Uncovers Quantum Magnet Behavior That Theory Did Not Predict
Pasqal a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, announced that its 256-qubit quantum processor has revealed an unexpected behavior in a two-dimensional quantum magnet: under certain conditions, the system takes far longer to settle after being disturbed than theory predicts. The results, released as a preprint with the Flatiron Institute, the University of Augsburg, Forschungszentrum Jülich, the University of Regensburg and the Institut d’Optique–CNRS, were obtained in a regime where three state-of-the-art classical simulation methods no longer agree with one another.
Quandela, a European leader in photonic quantum computing, and FPT Corporation, Vietnam’s largest private information technology and telecommunications services company, announced today the signing of a two-year Memorandum of Understanding aimed at developing cooperation in quantum technologies and supporting the development of the quantum ecosystem in Vietnam. The two-year agreement establishes a framework through which FPT and Quandela will explore joint initiatives combining FPT’s engineering, research and understanding of the Vietnamese market with Quandela’s expertise in photonic quantum computing, including hardware, software and cloud infrastructure.
Quandela And Quanova Partner to Deploy Vietnam’s First Quantum Computer
Quandela, a European leader in photonic quantum computing, announces a major milestone in its expansion in Southeast Asia. Quanova, a Vietnamese quantum company, has selected Quandela’s MosaiQ solution as the foundation of a new quantum research, innovation, service and entrepreneurship (quantum-RISE) program at Quang Trung University (QTU) in Quy Nhơn, Gia Lai. The project marks the first France–Vietnam collaboration in quantum computing and will lead to the deployment of Vietnam’s first quantum computer, with the support of Nam A Bank.
Pasqal (Nasdaq: PSQL), a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, today announced that its Information Security Management System (ISMS) has achieved ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, the internationally recognized standard for information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection. The certification provides customers, particularly in regulated industries, with independent assurance that Pasqal systematically identifies, assesses, and manages information security risks across its certified activities, as they transition quantum computing from pilots to production.
Pasqal Launches an AI-Assisted Workflow to Accelerate Cloud QPU Experiments
Pasqal (Nasdaq: PSQL), a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, today announced the availability of an AI-assisted workflow on Pasqal Cloud. Available as a plugin for leading agentic coding environments, the new feature can take a well-defined scientific idea to a running experiment on a quantum processing unit (QPU), significantly reducing the engineering effort that has long stood between an idea for a quantum use case and its execution on hardware.
Quandela continues in FrenchTech 2030 for a third consecutive year
Quandela announces its selection for the 2026 French Tech 2030 cohort, marking its third consecutive year of participation in the programme since its launch in 2023. The new cohort brings together 80 companies across eight strategic technology sectors. Led by Mission French Tech, the programme supports high-potential French companies developing breakthrough technologies, providing tailored government assistance to accelerate their growth in France and internationally.
Quandela demonstrates its GPU–QPU integration architecture using NVIDIA NVQLink
Quandela, a European leader in photonic quantum computing, will showcase a new hybrid AI–quantum computing demonstrator at NVIDIA GTC Berlin, to show how quantum processing units can become integrated resources within accelerated computing infrastructures. The demonstrator builds on Quandela’s experimental validation, announced at ISC High Performance in Hamburg earlier this year, of a low-latency integration path between NVIDIA accelerated computing and Quandela photonic quantum processors using NVIDIA NVQLink.
Quandela, a European company, leader in photonic quantum computing, and the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), South Korea’s national reference institute for biosciences and biotechnology, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Paris on September 8, 2026, to strengthen their collaboration on applying quantum technologies to advanced biotechnology research and drug discovery. Through this partnership, Quandela and KRIBB aim to bring together two accelerating fields: life sciences and quantum computing. Their objective is to develop and validate practical applications of photonic quantum computing capable of addressing complex biological challenges, while pioneering new research models that combine artificial intelligence, classical computing, and quantum technologies.
Welinq is advancing distributed quantum computing by adapting error correction to support logical operations across interconnected quantum processors. Reliable quantum computation across interconnected processors requires understanding the way in which errors affect operations, both within and between them. Evaluating this reliability involves extensive simulations, rendering computational speed a key factor in exploring different architectures.
Science and Research
Alice & Bob Estimates 22,593 Qubits to Break RSA-2048
Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, sets a record low for the total quantum resources (qubits multiplied by runtime) required to run Shor’s algorithm on today’s encryption. Its cat-qubit architecture needs 40 times fewer physical qubits than Google Quantum AI’s Craig Gidney 2025 estimate to break RSA-2048 (arxiv). In the paper “Shor’s algorithm compiled on cat qubits: 22 593 qubits for RSA-2048 in 3.14 days” (IACR ePrint) researchers estimate the resources to break the following systems on fault-tolerant superconducting cat-qubit hardware:
Education and Events
Twelve CNRS quantum start-ups pitch to investors at the MEDEF Tech Evening
The fifth MEDEF Tech Evening, on 1 October 2026 at the CNRS in Paris, is devoted to quantum technologies. Twelve start-ups born in CNRS laboratories present their work to investors, large companies and public bodies.
Quantint: a project to explore quantum information
Looking to the future, quantum internet promises capacities that classical networks cannot match. But in practical terms, how will quantum networks communicate? Answering this question is the challenge taken on by Quantint, a Franco-American fundamental research project. Interview with Philippe Jacquet, scientific coordinator of the project and researcher in the TRiBE project team, and Marc-Olivier Renou, head of PhIQuS, on the beginnings of this incredible scientific adventure at the Inria Saclay Centre.
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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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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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![QPerfect [Acquired by BTQ Technologies]](https://s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/tqd.s3.bucket/images/46d8997f-6dca-4f6a-94be-b55cdb6a602d.jpeg)
QPerfect [Acquired by BTQ Technologies]
QPerfect specializes in developing solutions aimed at enhancing quantum computer performance, with a focus on scaling to fault-tolerant regimes. QPerfect's innovations aim to unlock industry-relevant applications that were previously inaccessible.
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Thales Group
Thales Group is a French multinational company that designs and builds electrical systems and provides services for the aerospace, defense, transportation and security markets.
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Alice&Bob
Alice&Bob are working towards building an error corrected, fault tolerant quantum computer. They are working with superconducting circuits called ‘Cat Qubits’ which reduce the hardware required for error correction. With a cat Qubit, it is possible to stabilize two particular states in which quantum information is encoded autonomously.
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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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Welinq
Welinq provides solutions to interconnect quantum processors.
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