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OpenSuperQPlus At The European Quantum Technologies Conference 2024

The European Quantum Technologies Conference (EQTC) is the premier networking event in Europe for scientists, entrepreneurs, and stakeholders in the quantum community. Since its inception in 2019, the conference has grown significantly, and in 2024 it marked its fourth edition. Held in the beautiful city of Lisbon from 18 to 20 November 2024, the event brought together a diverse range of participants from industry, academia, and policy levels.

OpenSuperQPlus (OSQ+) was on site together with some sister projects from the Quantum Flagship (QF) initiative to present project progress, contribute to the official EQTC programme, exchange with colleagues and prepare for the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ) 2025 proclaimed by the United Nations.

Quantum Flagship booth

Coordinated by OSQ+ partner EURICE, we used the EQTC to intensify our project outreach. In addition to the presentation of project materials, the QF stand also featured a video showing the delivery of an OrangeQS Rack to Aalto University and a new backend for Quantify developed together with Zurich Instruments in the framework of OSQ+. Also, our partner Walther-Meissner-Institute showcased slides about their latest project work in connection with their spin-off Peak Quantum. Personally on site at the QF booth was Vivek Sinha (Delft University of Technology), who showed demos of planned upgrades and developments of the Quantum Inspire platform within OSQ+ in addition to providing information about the roadmap to a 100-qubit cloud-connected quantum computer for our project.

Interview recordings

We also used the meeting of the most important minds in quantum research at EQTC to conduct interviews with project members. OSQ+ coordinator Frank Wilhelm-Mauch (Forschungszentrum Jülich) shared with us recent project successes, activities at the EQTC, plans for the IYQ 2025 and the relevance of the QF Initiative as an umbrella organisation for promoting European efforts towards a true quantum advantage. Tommaso Calarco (also Forschungszentrum Jülich), one of the initiators of the QF Initiative, talked to us about the latest developments in quantum technology, such as a Quantum Act and Quantum Chips Plan being considered by the EU Commission to bundle the research efforts of EU member states. In addition to these major updates on quantum research in Europe and the current status of work in OSQ+, two other project members were available to answer our questions and report in detail on their areas of work. Richard Versluis (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) and Vivek Sinha (Delft University of Technology) described the current status of the Quantum Inspire platform, which will host the three quantum demonstrators developed in OSQ+, as well as news about the demonstrator specially built in Delft. The interviews conducted at the EQTC will form part of OSQ+'s communication campaign in the coming International Year of Quantum.

Conference Programme

The scientific programme of the EQTC was also supported by our OSQ+ colleagues in various specialist areas. Tommaso Calarco was able to draw on his expertise regarding the current state of European quantum research not only in our interview, but also as chair of the panel discussion ‘The European Quantum Declaration’. Mika Prunnila (VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland) gave a presentation on ‘Pilot Lines for Quantum Technologies’. Pieter Vermaas (TU Delft ) participated in the EQTC programme with two sessions dealing with overarching questions of social and ethical aspects of quantum computing: He gave his assessment during a panel on ‘Quantum for Society: a diverse community contributing to sustainability’ and chaired another panel on ‘Ethics and Disruptions of Quantum Technologies’. The highlight of the EQTC programme was certainly the ‘Special session on Benchmarking of Quantum Computing’ jointly organised by our sister project EuRyQa and us. Zoltán Zimborás (Wigner Research Centre for Physics) contributed his expertise on ‘Scalable volumetric benchmarks based on Clifford and free-fermion operations’. The benchmarking workshop was rounded off by a lively panel discussion, once again with the participation of Zoltán Zimborás and chaired by OSQ+ coordinator Frank Wilhelm-Mauch. The latter was delighted that the complex but all the more important topic of benchmarking and standardisation got a lot of attention, drawing over 100 participants and sparking insightful discussions.

At EQTC 2024, our consortium was delighted to have many opportunities to present project results and – while exchanging ideas with colleagues from the field – gaining exciting insights into the latest scientific findings and political trends that will influence the future of quantum technologies. Above all, the Quantum Act, the increasing interconnections between Quantum Technologies, High Performance Computing, and AI will have a significant influence on the quantum technologies of the future.