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2026: THEY YEAR WHEN EUROPE STARTS MANUFACTURING THE QUANTUM STACK

For years, Europe’s deeptech and quantum story was dominated by research milestones, lab breakthroughs and scientific leadership.  

In 2026, the story changes.  

What’s emerging now is not just discovery. It’s industrialisation: chips, factories, pilot lines, satellites, compute infrastructure and deployment pathways. Capital is shifting toward manufacturability. Policy is shifting toward scale. Infrastructure is being built to move quantum and deeptech from proof-of-concept to production systems.  

This is no longer about “who has the best lab”. It’s about who can build the stack.

From Lab to Factory: Europe Starts Building Quantum for Real

The clearest signal of 2026 is this: Europe is now funding the build layer of quantum.  

A new €50M pan-European programme, “Photonics for Quantum (P4Q)”, has launched to solve one of the hardest bottlenecks in the ecosystem: making reliable, manufacturable photonic chips for quantum sensing, computing and secure communications. The objective is not more prototypes, but process design kits, standards and repeatable industrial production.

At the same time, Europe’s sovereign quantum infrastructure is becoming concrete:

  • The Eagle-1 quantum satellite is scheduled for launch in late 2026 / early 2027 as the space backbone of EuroQCI, Europe’s secure quantum communications network.
  • EuroHPC’s mandate was expanded in January 2026 to explicitly cover next-generation computing, including quantum systems, aligning supercomputing, AI and quantum into one strategic compute stack.  

Europe is no longer just funding research. It is building industrial scaffolding.

Capital Is Now Flowing to Deployability, Not Demos

The funding pattern in 2026 is clear: money is going where systems can ship.

  • 🇮🇪 Equal1 (Ireland) raised $60M to scale silicon-based quantum computers designed to fit inside standard data centres.
  • Haiqu raised $11M seed to build a hardware-aware quantum operating system, focused on making near-term machines usable.
  • 🇳🇱 QuiX Quantum is scaling photonic quantum computing toward deliverable systems.
  • 🇪🇸 Multiverse Computing continues pushing quantum-inspired and quantum-native software into enterprise workflows.
  • 🇩🇪 planqc is advancing neutral-atom quantum processors as part of Europe’s diversified hardware stack.

The common thread: Less “look what we built”. More “here’s what you can run”.

Deeptech Is Converging Around Chips, Compute and Infrastructure

Quantum is not evolving in isolation. It is merging into a broader deeptech industrial stack:

  • Photonics is becoming a strategic bridge between semiconductors and quantum.
  • Chips, advanced materials and compute platforms are now treated as strategic assets, not niche research outputs.
  • National programmes across Germany, France, the Netherlands and Finland are increasingly organised around “lab-to-fab” pathways.   

Industry is blunt about the risk:  

If Europe doesn’t scale manufacturing access, it may win the science and lose the market. This is why deeptech capital and policy are concentrating around:

  • Chips & advanced materials
  • Photonics platforms
  • Compute infrastructure
  • Quantum networking & secure systems

Deeptech is becoming industrial policy in silicon and code.

Policy Is Now Explicitly About Scale and Sovereignty

2026 is a turning point year for Europe’s deeptech governance.

  • The Commission plans to present a Quantum Act in 2026, with a focus on accelerating R&I, industrial pilot lines and design facilities, and supply‑chain resilience and governance.
  • The EU is preparing a Scale-Up Europe Fund (~€5B) to close late-stage funding gaps in AI, quantum, semiconductors and strategic deeptech.
  • Horizon Europe has launched €300M+ in calls spanning AI, robotics, data, photonics and quantum as one strategic cluster.  

This is no longer ecosystem support. This is capacity planning.

Infrastructure Is Becoming Global, Operational, and Testable

At Davos 2026, TII (Abu Dhabi) + WEF launched Abu Dhabi Centre for Frontier Technologies inside the C4IR network, focused on:

  • Quantum
  • Robotics
  • Space & propulsion systems
  • AI

With pilots, regulatory sandboxes and deployment frameworks built in. The emerging model is clear: Testbeds + policy + capital + deployment in one loop.

What This All Means

Europe’s deeptech and quantum ecosystem is entering a new phase:

  • Less research theatre
  • More industrial execution
  • More focus on chips, infrastructure and supply chains
  • More alignment between policy, capital, compute and manufacturing
  • A clear push toward sovereign, scalable technology stacks

Quantum is no longer a science project. Deeptech is no longer a niche. They are becoming strategic infrastructure.

Where This Comes Together: GITEX AI EUROPE

This shift from research to deployment, from experimentation to scale, is exactly what GITEX AI EUROPE is built to surface.  

Europe isn’t just inventing the future. It’s starting to manufacture it.  

And that next chapter happens at GITEX AI EUROPE.

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