EIC Pathfinder Open call funds new quantum tech projects
The EIC Pathfinder Open call choses five quantum research institutes to receive funding for their ‘radically new technologies’.
The European Innovation Council (EIC) has announced the selection of 45 research institutes and SMEs that will soon receive funding under their Pathfinder Open call. The September announcement sees €138mil granted for ‘radically new technologies’ in fields such as health, AI, and energy.
Out of a staggering 1110 proposals evaluated, there were 5 successful proposals for projects in the field of quantum technologies:
QOSiLICIOUS (Austrian Institute of Technology, AT) –Quantum-Optic Silicon as a Commodity: Extending the Trust Continuum till the Edge of ICT Networks
QuSPARC (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, AT) – Quantum technology with a spin-photon architecture for thousand-qubit chipsets at telecom wavelengths
EQUSPACE (University of Jyväskylä, FI) –Enabling new quantum frontiers with spin acoustics in silicon
ELEQUANT (CNRS, FR) – Entangled Flying Electron Quantum Technology
QCEED (University College Cork, IE) –Quantum Dot coupling engineering (and dynamic spin decoupling/deep nuclei cooling): 2-dimensional cluster state generation for quantum information processing.
The projects each receive around €3mil funding over their 3-4 year lifetime, plus access to tailor-made coaching under the EIC Business Acceleration Services. This follows the recent announcement of five quantum technology SMEs winning grants under the EIC Accelerator initiative, which funds projects higher up the TRL scale.
The ELEQUANT project was chosen as an example in EIC press release, as it proposes “a paradigm shift from the mainstream superconductor or semiconductor quantum technology approach by exploiting flying electrons (qubits). Meanwhile, the QCEED project seems to be part of University College Cork’s new quantum and photonics programme.
A list of quantum technology companies already being funded by the EIC can be found in our list of projects.
