The Quantum Flagship at the Mobile World Congress

From 25-28 of February, the Quantum Flagship made its official presentation at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona with over 100,000 visitors attending one of the largest mobile events in the world. Coordinated by ICFO, the recently launched flagship stand had a singular space devoted to quantum technologies within the NEXTech Hall, aiming to give visitors a glimpse at how these quantum technologies seek to radically improve the field of telecommunications.

Throughout the four days of the event, over 650 visitors from more than 60 different countries and 19 tours visited the space, which provided an overview of the initiative, its areas of research, and its roadmap for the next 10 years. In particular, it focused on the objectives expected to achieve in the area of quantum communications, giving an introduction to the four projects that have been selected for this area (CIVIQ, QIA, QRANGE and UNIQORN) and also including a prototype of a quantum random number generator chip provided by the company Quside, a partner of the flagship.

Visitors to the stand were able to talk and share their interests with researchers and representatives from the different quantum communications projects: Prof. Valerio Pruneri (coordinator of CiViQ and partner of Qrange) and representative of UNIQORN; Prof. Antonio Acín (partner of CiViQ, Qrange and QCN representative of Spain); Prof. Hugues de Riedmatten (partner of QIA); Dr. Joseph Bowles (partner of Qrange), Dr. Samuele Grandi (partner of QIA); and Dr. Carlos Abellan and Dr. Domenico Tulli, founders from Quside and partners from QRANGE and CiViQ.

In addition, on Monday February 25^th, Dr. Roberto Viola, Director General of Communications Network, Content and Technology of the European Commission, visited the Quantum Flagship space and had the opportunity to talk with the quantum flagship representatives to have an overview of the initiative and the roadmap for the coming future. As he commented through his twitter account, “I was happy to see the excellent work done by the Graphene Flagship and the Quantum Flagship on graphene and quantum technologies, during my visit at the Mobile World Congress 2019. Europe can and should stay in the game in these two key technologies”.

With a duration of 10 years and a budget of at least EUR 1 billion each, FET Flagships are among the most ambitious research projects funded by the European Commission. The Quantum Flagship’s main goal is to take and transfer the research from the lab to the market by means of commercial applications that will help create the next generation of disruptive technologies, searching to position Europe as a worldwide knowledge-based industrial and technological leader in this innovative field.

Click here to see the Gallery of Images from the MWC.