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  • 🔵 The Quantum Insider Weekly | National Investments. Going Modular. And More News in Quantum!

🔵 The Quantum Insider Weekly | National Investments. Going Modular. And More News in Quantum!

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FROM THE EDITOR.

Just a quick note as I know many of you are gearing up for the holidays and end-of-year breaks.

This year has been quite an ride. It seems like I make that assertion every year, but 2025 does seem special. The U.N. designation of 2025 as the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology now seems somewhat prophetic with business mergers and research advances, company acquisitions and public stock listings, key hires and critical partnerships — the list goes on and on.

It’s impossible to say what the future holds, but the industry seems resilient enough to take on any circumstance.

Thanks for coming along for the ride.

A final shout out to my colleague Ceirra Choucair, who was named one of the Top 100 of Quantum. We are proud at all of her work to help this community and we find this honor well-deserved.

Have a great weekend. Thanks for reading!

— Matt, Chief Content Officer at The Quantum Insider

INSIDER BRIEF.

The Noteworthy & Nuanced

Wordplay, wordplay everywhere! QUDORA Technologies has introduced Qamelion, a quantum computing emulator for testing algorithms under realistic, hardware-like noise conditions. Some features include adjustable noise models, hybrid classical quantum execution, and compatibility with OpenQASM, Qiskit, and QIR, enabling thorough evaluation of near-term and future algorithms. Available through QUDORA’s cloud with a free trial, Qamelion will also be offered in Japan through Fixstars Amplify.

“Pan-European Quantum Corridor” - sounds fancy, doesn’t it? SEALSQ has expanded its Quantum Investment Fund from $35M to more than $100M. All in order to create the aforementioned corridor and advance Europe’s post-quantum security and sovereign quantum computing ambitions. The company is deploying capital across PQC hardware, secure satellites, blockchain identity systems, QKD, and quantum-ready semiconductors in multiple countries.

Illinois is pumping out support for quantum startups. The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) and Silicon Catalyst have formed a partnership that will give companies in Silicon Catalyst’s accelerator access to lab space, specialized equipment, cryogenic infrastructure, and the National Quantum Facility. This is all facilitated by the Illinois EDC, as part of a strategy to attract and retain quantum firms in the state. — Alan Kanapin, Analyst at The Quantum Insider

The Research Rundown

Check out this week’s handpicked quantum research. These are studies headed for real-world impact: improving accuracy, reducing latency, using fewer resources, or solving problems that classical methods struggle with. These are early developments, but they hint at where quantum might earn its keep.

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Quantum Source has released a technical report, developed with The Quantum Insider, comparing all major qubit modalities and outlining engineering pathways toward fault-tolerant quantum computing. The analysis shows the field has shifted from theory to practical engineering, with recent logical-qubit demonstrations and hybrid architectures, such as Quantum Source’s deterministic atom–photon platform, emerging as potential routes to scalable systems.

➡️ UK Research and Innovation’s £38.6 billion four-year settlement includes more than £1 billion explicitly earmarked for quantum technologies, placing the field among the UK government’s core strategic bets.
➡️ The £1.013 billion quantum allocation spans 2026–27 through 2029–30 and draws from both targeted R&D funding and company scale-up support, signaling a shift from research emphasis to commercialization outcomes.
➡️ Roughly £426 million will fund quantum R&D tied to national priorities, while £588 million is directed toward helping quantum companies start, scale and reach market.
➡️ Quantum sits within UKRI’s “Digital and Technologies” grouping, aligning the sector with industrial strategy goals around growth, national security, and advanced computing.
➡️ The funding framework underscores a broader transition: UK quantum policy is moving from ecosystem building toward performance, deployment, and economic return.

Analyst Commentary

Details of UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) plan for deploying its record £38.6 billion government settlement is perhaps the clearest signal about how the UK views quantum technologies for the near future. Of the total allocation, just over £1 billion — £1.013 billion to be precise — is explicitly tagged for quantum, positioning the field as one of the country’s priority technologies along with advanced digital infrastructure, clean energy, and national security capabilities.

Without a doubt, the number matters, but the structure behind it may matter more.

The funding, which spans financial years 2026–27 through 2029–30, reflects UKRI’s move to merge quantum efforts into a single mission that can advance knowledge, improve lives and drive economic growth. That mission-driven framing marks a departure from previous budget cycles, where funding streams were easier to trace back to individual research councils or thematic programs. Under the new approach, allocations are outcome-focused, making direct comparisons with historic quantum spending difficult, but also revealing how government expectations for the sector have evolved.

Quantum’s £1.013 billion allocation draws from two of UKRI’s three priority “buckets.” Approximately £426 million is directed toward targeted research and development aligned with strategic government and societal priorities, including national security, resilience, and advanced computing. The remaining £588 million is focused on supporting innovative companies, helping quantum startups and scale-ups move from laboratory success toward commercial deployment. In other words, more than half of the quantum allocation is explicitly aimed at commercialization rather than discovery alone.

The new breakdown suggests a sector that policymakers believe quantum is ready for its next phase. It is no longer being funded primarily as a scientific curiosity or long-term national capability hedge; it is being treated as an emerging industry expected to deliver measurable economic and strategic returns.

The placement of quantum within the “Digital and Technologies” grouping further reinforces that shift, in our opinion. Rather than standing apart as a special-case frontier science, quantum is now embedded alongside advanced digital systems and industrial technologies. That framing aligns quantum computing, sensing, and communications with broader efforts to modernize infrastructure, secure data, and build competitive technology platforms. It also implicitly raises expectations. Technologies in this category are expected to scale, integrate, and perform — not simply demonstrate novelty.

UKRI’s overall allocation framework provides additional context. Of the £38.6 billion settlement, £14 billion is reserved for curiosity-driven research that underpins the UK’s R&D base. Another £8 billion supports targeted R&D addressing national and societal challenges, while £7 billion is dedicated to helping innovative companies grow and commercialize cutting-edge technologies. The remainder funds cross-cutting investments in skills and infrastructure. Quantum draws meaningfully from both the targeted R&D and company-growth buckets, but not from the curiosity-driven pool.

If we are not reading too much into it, this move seems to say that fundamental research remains supported through broader mechanisms, but the quantum-specific line items are increasingly about translation, deployment and scale. Policymakers appear to be signaling that the foundational science phase — while not complete — is sufficiently mature to justify a sharper focus on systems, platforms, and market readiness. For quantum startups and industrial players, this creates both opportunity and pressure.

The opportunity lies in access to sustained, multi-year funding aligned with industrial strategy goals. A four-year horizon provides a degree of planning stability that is rare in deep tech. Companies working on quantum computing architectures, enabling hardware, control systems, and networking technologies can map roadmaps against known funding windows. The emphasis on scale-up support suggests that UKRI expects companies to move beyond pilot projects toward early commercial traction, partnerships, and deployments.

There is some caution in this overwhelmingly optimistic announcement. The headline £1 billion figure does not automatically translate into guaranteed success, nor does it resolve the technical and engineering challenges that continue to face quantum systems. Scaling remains hard. Timelines remain uncertain. Global competition is intensifying.

What this allocation does provide is clarity of intent. The UK government, through UKRI, is betting that quantum technologies are ready to be treated as part of the country’s industrial future rather than its scientific past.

DATA SPOTLIGHT.

PacketLight Networks and NEC demonstrated quantum key distribution over a 400G dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network using a dual-fiber setup. They integrated NEC’s QKD system with PacketLight’s PL-4000M 600G Muxponder, achieving 100% data throughput and low latency, verified via a 100GbE tester. The QKD ran over a dedicated parallel fiber, maintaining quantum signal integrity. The result: a cost-effective, scalable quantum-safe model with zero performance tradeoffs on existing high-capacity infrastructure.

INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS.

🇨🇦 Canada has launched Phase 1 of the Canadian Quantum Champions Program, committing up to $92 million as part of a $334 million, five-year effort to anchor domestic quantum capability tied to economic and national security. The program is providing up to $23 million each to Anyon Systems, Nord Quantique, Photonic, and Xanadu Quantum Technologies, alongside independent benchmarking by the National Research Council of Canada to push fault-tolerant systems toward real-world use.

💯 The UN-designated International Year of Quantum Science and Technology has launched the Quantum 100, recognizing 100 individuals worldwide selected from more than 400 nominations for advancing quantum research, education, innovation, and community building.

📈 Zapata Quantum has become current in its SEC reporting, moving from the OTC Expert Market to the OTC Pink Limited Market and enabling broader trading access as it works toward relisting on a national exchange such as Nasdaq.

🇨🇭 IonQ has expanded its partnership with QuantumBasel in a deal valued at over $60 million, transferring ownership of an IonQ Forte Enterprise system and securing a next-generation IonQ Tempo system while extending its on-site presence in Switzerland through 2029.

🤑 Enlightra has raised $15 million to develop chip-scale multiwavelength lasers that replace copper interconnects with high-bandwidth, energy-efficient optical links for AI data centers.

🇸🇬 Keysight Technologies has signed a five-year research collaboration with A*STAR, National University of Singapore (via CQT), and Nanyang Technological University to advance quantum hardware design, measurement, and control.

🎮️ MOTH argues that classical computing has hit hard limits in gaming and that quantum computing combined with generative AI can enable larger, more dynamic game worlds and faster development cycles.

🇮🇹 Italy is moving to centralize its quantum ecosystem through a proposed National Quantum Polo, aimed at unifying research, industry, and national security to strengthen technological sovereignty and industrial competitiveness. International partnerships, including the establishment of IonQ Italia, are reinforcing the strategy.

🏆️ Fujitsu has launched a Quantum Simulator Challenge offering up to $100,000 for academic and industry teams to apply real-world problems to its 40-qubit, CPU-based quantum simulator running on large-scale HPC infrastructure. Selected teams will collaborate with Fujitsu from January to March 2026.

EVENTS.

Dec. 17-18 -- Science Diplomacy - Bridging divides in a fragmented world will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference explores how science diplomacy can bridge divides and promote innovation, competitiveness, and international cooperation.

January 27 and 28, 2026 -- Qubits 2026 D-Wave is bringing its annual user conference, Qubits, to Boca Raton, Florida. The event will be held at The Boca Raton resort.

March 24 -- The QSECDEF World Symposium will be held on 24 March 2026 from 12:00–18:00 CET at the Palais des Congrès de Paris (Auditorium Havana), gathering global leaders from industry, government, and research to advance quantum-secure communication and infrastructure.

April 27-30 -- The Quantum Matter International Conference & Expo (QUANTUMatter2026) will take place at the Barceló Sants Hotel in Barcelona. The conference to foster the incubation of new ideas & collaborations at the forefront of quantum technologies, emerging quantum materials and novel generations of quantum communication protocols, quantum sensing and quantum simulation.

June 4-5 -- Q2B Tokyo 2026 will be held exclusively in-person and presented in Japanese and English, with real-time interpretation.

June 22-24 -- IQT Nordics: Oslo, Norway

June 24-26 -- Quantum. Tech World: Boston, Mass

June 25-26 -- Quantum.Tech World -- Empowering Quantum, AI & HPC at Enterprise -- Scale, co-located with Quantum.Tech World will be held at Encore Boston Harbor in Boston, United States.

July 1-3 -- The 2026 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Control, Computing, and Learning (IEEE qCCL 2026) will take place from Wednesday to Friday, July 1-3, 2026