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FROM THE EDITOR.

Just about every week of 2025, we’ve had the opportunity to congratulate a hard-working quantum team for a successful funding round.

This week will not be an exception.

Sparrow Quantum announced a €21.5 million series A funding round.

When these rounds are announced, we tend to see similarities — credentialed teams, well-regarded technology and a strong sense of where they are playing in the market, to name a few of the commonalities. But, I want to point out what I think is a growing trend in quantum funding: the size and prestige of funders is leveling up.

In the case of Sparrow Quantum, the investors represent that leveling up. PensionDanmark and EIFO led the round. I’ll also spotlight the inclusion of Novo Foundation on the list because this is their first direct investment in quantum.

So, why would the holding and investment company that is responsible for managing the assets and the wealth of one of the world’s largest philanthropic enterprise foundations choose Sparrow — and more generally quantum?

Jeroen Bakker, Partner, Seed Investments, Novo Holdings, said… “Photonic quantum technology holds significant promise for the future of quantum computing, and Sparrow Quantum’s approach has the potential to play a critical role in this evolving landscape. Our investment reflects Novo Holdings’ commitment to supporting the quantum ecosystem in Denmark and fostering innovation that can lead to real-world impact.”

So, there’s a key modality with performance advantages. There’s the potential of real-world impact and, one would hope, the resulting commercialization. And Bakker also cites the robust Dutch ecosystem.

In short, this is a good example of how the message about quantum is getting out — and it’s reaching the highest levels of business, industry and government.

Have a great weekend!

— Matt, Chief Content Officer at The Quantum Insider

INSIDER BRIEF.

• Dr. ‘t Hooft Definitely Not Celebrating International Year of Quantum

• BTQ Invests in QPerfect

• CAS And Cleveland Clinic Enlist Quantum For Brain Health

• University of Chicago Explores Quantum Cancer Research

• Ilana Wisby New Moth CEO

• UK Launches $54 Million Quantum Hub

• Codes And Commitment

• Terrapinstitute? UMD Establishes Institute For Quantum Applications

• Decathlon of Difficulty?

• Training AI to Predict Quantum Systems

• UK Makes Long-Distance Quantum Connection

• ORCA Computing’s Use Case Advances

• India’s Quantum Ambitions Meets Hardware Limits

• Quantum eMotion in Motion

ANALYST NOTES.

The Noteworthy & Nuanced

It’s a rare joy to hear a Nobel Laureate criticize the very field they received the prize for. Gerard ’t Hooft, a Dutch theoretical physicist who shared the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics, recently shared his concerns about quantum mechanics being misinterpreted. According to ‘t Hooft, for example, the notion of superposition is only a mathematical convenience, but the underlying physical world behaves classically. He further encourages younger scientists to think outside the box and dare to be creative.

Now that we’ve pulled out the rug from quantum mechanics, let’s see what remains standing. The AI-Quantum crossover episode is here: Chinese scientists from Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center have started using quantum computers to fine-tune AI models. The experiment, conducted on the 72-qubit Origin Wukong system, showed improved model performance even after reducing parameters by over 75%.

China is also famous for its long-distance QKD networks. This week, we saw the UK following suit. The Universities of Bristol and Cambridge demonstrated the country’s first long-distance video call, secured with quantum encryption over 410km of fiber. The physics of the experiment was thoroughly covered, but one crucial detail was omitted - what software was used for the call? Was it Quantum Zoom, Teams, or Meet? We’ll never know. — Alan Kanapin, Analyst at The Quantum Insider

The Research Rundown

This week’s research orbit clusters around the act of seeing. First up, image classification through quantum extreme learning machines—researchers from IFAE Barcelona and Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech developed a model that uses quantum reservoirs to improve pattern recognition in visual datasets. Unlike conventional deep learning approaches that require heavy training, QELM shifts the work to the quantum state space itself.

Meanwhile, Fred Chong’s group at the University of Chicago continues to push on something more urgent than digit recognition: cancer biomarkers. With fresh support from Wellcome Leap, they’re entering Phase 3 of their quantum-classical hybrid project, moving from simulation to real hardware. This goes beyond the technically ambitious to emotionally resonant, the kind of development we hope quantum will one day bring. With enough fidelity and biological insight, these models could help flag cancers long before traditional methods can, especially in ambiguous or early-stage cases.

That attention to early detection echoed in another study this week, where researchers used a quantum-inspired SVM to screen for Parkinson’s using smartphone data. Tapping rhythms, gait patterns, vocal tremors—these subtle signs, once siloed and underused, now feed into a multimodal model that simulates quantum feature maps to catch what classical systems might miss. What’s notable here isn’t just the performance (though 90% accuracy is impressive), but the philosophy of leaning into affordable, accessible, and interpretable tools. This has the potential to be used anywhere a smartphone is, reducing global diagnostic disparities long before we reach fault-tolerant quantum.

Taken together, these projects show a recurring motif: quantum computing's near-term value may not lie in outperforming the best classical models, but in changing how data is represented and processed, especially in domains where information is fuzzy, nonlinear, and hard to pin down. Whether visual, biological, or behavioral—quantum systems seem to excel not at "hard math" per se, but at reframing the problem altogether.

And in a week where even high schoolers were shown to grasp entanglement and superposition through visual logic (thanks to Quantum Picturalism), it's hard not to wonder: maybe quantum’s greatest power isn’t brute force, but perspective. — Cierra Choucair, Journalist & Analyst at The Quantum Insider

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INSIDER SPOTLIGHT: Researchers Demonstrate the UK’s First Long-Distance Communication Over a Quantum Network

➡️ UK researchers demonstrate the country’s first long-distance quantum-secured data transfer — including a quantum-safe video call between Cambridge and Bristol over 410 km of fibre.

➡️ The experimental network combines both core types of quantum key distribution: single-photon encryption and distributed entanglement — a first for a hybrid QKD system over long distances.

➡️ The demonstration used standard optical fibre and low-loss switching hardware, showcasing compatibility with existing telecom infrastructure.

➡️ Researchers securely transferred medical records, enabled remote access to data centers, and hosted a live encrypted video call — all through quantum-secured channels.

➡️ The UK Quantum Network is now set to expand through the newly funded Integrated Quantum Networks Hub, aiming for global-scale entanglement and teleportation links.

Analyst Commentary

This week’s successful trial marks more than a technical milestone — it signals the UK’s coming of age as a complete quantum nation. What unfolded between Cambridge and Bristol wasn’t just a secure video call, but a glimpse into the future of quantum-safe communications — layered, modular, and operational at national scale.

This network, built over more than a decade by teams at Bristol and Cambridge, isn’t just a lab test. It’s an orchestration of every core component quantum communications requires: quantum key distribution, entanglement distribution, classical and quantum traffic co-existing on standard fibre, and practical applications like encrypted healthcare data and remote access.

The achievement is technical, but its deeper strength is organizational. The UK’s quantum ecosystem is delivering — with top-tier talent in the right institutions, long-term public funding, and trusted industrial partners like BT, Toshiba, and Cisco. This alignment across academia, infrastructure, and industry is difficult to replicate and easy to overlook. It’s not just a win for research — it’s a signal that UK investments in sovereign quantum capabilities are maturing into real-world assets.

What distinguishes this project from global peers is its hybrid design. Networks in China, Spain, and the U.S. have demonstrated individual QKD techniques, but the UK’s demonstration is the first to incorporate both major quantum encryption modes in a long-distance fibre network. That matters. The future quantum internet won’t be monolithic — it will be pluralistic, interoperable, and complex. This experiment shows the UK understands that.

The path forward is already mapped. With new EPSRC funding, the Integrated Quantum Networks Hub will push from metro-scale to national-scale to intercontinental — eventually linking quantum nodes via satellites and entanglement. That vision is no longer speculative. It’s structured. It’s funded. And if this week is any indication, it’s achievable.

What we’re seeing is more than just “great science.” It’s precision engineering across disciplines. It’s a team operating at the bleeding edge of telecom, cryptography, photonics, and quantum theory — and proving they can integrate it all into a functioning network. If this is what the UK can do today, it’s a portent of what it might deliver tomorrow.

The future of secure communications may be quantum. But the future of quantum networks will belong to those who can turn scientific insight into infrastructure. And this week, the UK just showed the world what that looks like.

DATA SPOTLIGHT.

Oxford researchers have demonstrated a 25-nanosecond controlled-Z (CZ) gate with 99.8% fidelity, making it one of the fastest and most accurate two-qubit gates to date. Using a simplified superconducting circuit design with opposite anharmonicity qubits, they eliminated the need for tunable couplers, reducing hardware complexity. The team leveraged a third quantum state to achieve a √2 speed-up, confirming it experimentally. This result pushes gate performance well into fault-tolerant territory without sacrificing simplicity, marking a major milestone for scalable quantum computing.

INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS.

🤝 Bosch has partnered with Element Six to commercialize quantum sensors that use synthetic diamonds with nitrogen-vacancy centers to detect weak magnetic and electric fields, targeting applications in healthcare, navigation, and resource exploration. The new joint venture hopes to scale production for industrial use.

💵 Finnish startup IQM is seeking to raise over €128 million as part of a new funding round, building on the $210 million it has already secured to become one of Europe's top-funded quantum hardware companies outside Big Tech.

🖥️ SaxonQ and Quantum Machines showcased the first public real-time quantum applications on a portable, room-temperature quantum computer at Hannover Messe 2025. The demonstrations featured quantum chemical calculations and real-time image recognition.

🇺🇸 Quantum eMotion has launched a U.S. subsidiary, Quantum eMotion America, in Irvine, California to expand its presence in the cybersecurity market and commercialize its quantum random number generation technology.

🧠 CAS and Cleveland Clinic have formed a strategic partnership to accelerate clinical research on healthy aging and brain health, with an initial focus on drug discovery for Alzheimer’s disease.

🌐 Researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cambridge have achieved the UK’s first long-distance quantum-secure data transfer (over 410 km of fiber) including a quantum-encrypted video call. By integrating multiple quantum key distribution methods using standard telecom infrastructure, the demonstration is a step toward a scalable, resilient quantum internet.

💸 Sparrow Quantum has raised €21.5 million in Series A funding to scale production and commercialize its photonic quantum chips, with support from PensionDanmark, EIFO, and Novo Holdings.

🔗 The UK has launched the £42 million Integrated Quantum Networks Hub, led by Heriot-Watt University, to develop scalable and secure quantum communications as part of its 2035 quantum strategy.

📜 Sen. Marsha Blackburn has introduced three bipartisan bills to strengthen U.S. leadership in quantum technology, targeting defense integration, commercial testing, and manufacturing infrastructure. The legislation proposes a Pentagon quantum strategy and advisor role, a NIST-led sandbox for near-term applications, and DOE-NSF collaboration on quantum manufacturing.

🤝 China Telecom and HKUST have signed a strategic agreement to advance AI and quantum technologies in the Greater Bay Area, establishing two research labs and a joint talent development program.

EVENTS.

April 14 -- C4IR Saudi Arabia, in partnership with KACST and Saudi Aramco, will host Discovering Quantum Possibilities in Riyadh, to mark World Quantum Day and the UN’s International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. The event will bring together global leaders from academia, government, and industry, as well as announce winners of the “UpLink Quantum for Society” challenge.

April 14 -- The 2025 Global Industry Challenge officially launches on World Quantum Day, bringing together innovators, researchers, and industry leaders to tackle real-world problems in life sciences, financial services, energy, and beyond

April 14-16 -- QuantumTech Washington D.C. April 15-16 - Main Conference and Expo. April 14 - Cryptography Spotlight Day. Conrad Hotel, Washington D.C.

May 13-14 -- The Economist Impact's 4th Annual Commercialising Quantum Global 2025 at London UK. Be among 1000+ leading quantum professionals, global leaders, policy makers, business executives and more to attend this in-person event in London.

May 14-15 -- Q2B Tokyo 2025 The conference will cover a broad range of quantum technology themes including QC Computing, Communications & Sensing, Quantum AI, Error Correction, & Quantum in HPC.

May 20-22 -- Join us for the 3rd annual IQT Nordics, May 20-22, 2025 in Gothenburg, Sweden, and contribute to scaling quantum computers towards real world applications.

June 9-12 -- Adiabatic Quantum Computing (AQC) 2025 Conference will be held at the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada from June 9-12, 2025. The AQC conference series, now in its 14th year, is an annual international gathering of researchers working on diverse aspects of quantum computing.

June 18-19 -- Quantum Now|ICI Quantique will be held in Montréal, Québec, Canada.

Sept. 29-Oct. 1 -- Quantum.Tech Europe is taking place in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The event will bring together the whole quantum supply chain to drive forward the commercial applications of Quantum Technologies.

October 8 -- The Fifth Anniversary of The City Quantum & AI Summit at the Mansion House in the City of London takes place this year with the subtitle Race for Growth.

Dec. 1-4 -- QUEST-IS 2025 Quantum Engineering Sciences and Technologies for Industry and Services From Quantum Engineering to Applications for Citizens. EDF Lab, Paris-Saclay, France