*Billions of euros invested in 2026, Qureca [27]  |  **Ranking in the 2025 Global Innovation Index (GII) [28]

Table 2. Other countries with quantum initiatives 

Fortunately, to work on the development of quantum technologies and participate in the enormous business volumes projected for the coming years, not everyone must necessarily invest in or participate directly in the production of quantum computers. Similar to what happened during the California Gold Rush, beyond the current “quantum gold rush,” there is room for growth across a vast array of activities within the nascent quantum industry. Therefore, among suppliers of components, tools, services, software, etc., there will also be success stories comparable to those who were not miners in California—such as Samuel Brannan and Levi Strauss.

Quantum technological sovereignty

Of course, it is entirely legitimate for governments to seek to achieve maximum quantum technological sovereignty—not only because of the decisive role these technologies will play in transforming traditional sectors of the economy and creating new sectors and activities that will facilitate sustainable development, but also because, in the complex geopolitical context in which we live, digitized economies are becoming increasingly strategic for national security.

It is curious to note that the vast majority of countries that have joined the complex and costly race for quantum computing through public initiatives did not have (or abandoned) similar programs to develop and produce classical computers using their own technologies. Here are some illustrative data on this issue:

·      In the first quarter of 2026, according to data from Gartner [28], six companies in North America, Asia, and Europe accounted for more than 91% of the world’s classical computer production. It is, to say the least, interesting that, unlike the dominant political discourse on quantum computers, this issue is not addressed or questioned politically as a vital aspect of technological sovereignty.

·       In recent years, more than 80% of the products, services, infrastructure, and
intellectual property of European Union countries have depended on other
countries in the digital sphere. This dependence is centered primarily on the
United States and has been increasing over the past 10 years  [29].

·       Both the U.S. and Europe rely on Asia for 75–90% of their semiconductor production [30].

Perhaps the sudden shifts in global geopolitics and China’s undeniable advances in digital and quantum technologies—rather than the technological achievements of AI and quantum computing themselves—have led many to see the writing on the wall regarding the dangers of such massive dependence on these technologies in the digital age. It was about time.

Regardless of the cause among many others, the following actions demonstrate specific efforts to promote digital technological sovereignty through public programs and multibillion-dollar funding from the U.S. and the EU (China has been successfully implementing its own for years):

U.S.

·       In August 2022, the U.S. enacted a federal initiative to revitalize domestic semiconductor manufacturing, research, and workforce development, known as the CHIPS and Science Act [31]. Administered primarily by the Department of Commerce and NIST, the CHIPS and Science Act established a $52 billion investment fund to revitalize the U.S. domestic semiconductor industry and strengthen the country’s economic and national security [32].

·       On May 21, 2026, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced, as part of an update to its funding, the signing of nine letters of intent to provide $2,013 million in federal incentives under the CHIPS and Science Act to boost domestic quantum manufacturing, as well as a broad portfolio of quantum products, among GlobalFoundries, IBM, Atom Computing, Diraq, D-Wave, Infleqtion, PsiQuantum, Quantinuum, and Rigetti.

·       On June 22, 2026, President Donald J. Trump, prioritizing U.S. leadership and dominance in critical and emerging sciences and technologies, signs the following executive orders:

o   Ushers in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation to drive U.S. innovation in quantum technologies and strengthen national security in this critical area. Quantum technologies are on the verge of a major commercial breakthrough and require a bold new policy approach to ensure that the United States continues to lead in this field.

o   Secures the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks to safeguard the United States’ most sensitive data, critical infrastructure, and the digital economy that drives jobs and growth, by advancing key technology that will protect U.S. systems in the quantum era, ensuring defense and resilience against potential disruptions to critical systems or data breaches, setting the global standard for secure technology and advanced cybersecurity in the U.S.

European Union

·       In December 2022, the Center on Regulation in Europe (CERRE) published the report Digital Industrial Policy for Europe [33], which addresses digital industrial policy at the EU level to promote digital autonomy and sovereignty, focusing on three case studies: semiconductors, cloud computing, and digital identity.

·       In September 2023, the Chips for Europe initiative [34] was launched. As part of this initiative, the European Chips Act Regulation [35] entered into force, and the public-private partnership Chips Joint Undertaking (Chips JU) [36] was launched. In June 2026, an updated version of the budget was released, allocating 215 million euros for the eight calls for proposals under the Chips for Europe Initiative planned for this year [37].

·       In February 2024, the European Quantum Flagship published the Strategic Research and Industry Agenda [38], a roadmap for the development of European quantum technologies, with the goal of positioning Europe as the world’s “Quantum Valley” by 2030.

·       In 2025, the European Commission presented the Quantum Europe Strategy: Quantum Europe in a Changing World [39]. The vision is to transform Europe into a quantum industrial powerhouse and a global leader in quantum technologies, building on sustained scientific leadership that helps attract key industrial and public users. These issues are essential for addressing fragmentation, accelerating industrial deployment, and ensuring strategic autonomy in quantum technologies.

·       In May 2026, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new investment of 1,000 million euros to support the country’s Quantum Plan (which has already received 2,300 million euros in government funding from 2021 to 2025) and called on Europe to maintain its sovereignty in the face of China and the United States.

·       In June 2026, the European Commission presented the Technological Sovereignty Package [40], a set of measures to strengthen Europe’s technological capacity and sovereignty in the areas of semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), cloud computing, and open source. The package includes two legislative proposals (the Chips Regulation 2.0 and the Act on the Development of Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence), as well as the Open Source Strategy and a Strategic Roadmap for Digitalization and AI in the Energy Sector.

At the time of writing, the program’s funding and the budget allocation for each component of the technological sovereignty package had not yet been detailed; however, it had been announced that, to achieve the package’s objectives, the European Innovation Council (EIC) will establish an initial fund of 5,000 millones de euros with the capacity to increase it further based on justified needs [41].

Let us hope that all these efforts will help successfully overcome the most serious historical hurdles that advanced sciences and technologies typically face in their practical application within the EU: overcoming the daunting challenge of transitioning to professional-scale production and large-scale commercialization.

That said, we must recognize that digital and quantum technological autonomy—as in many other fields—will be achieved by becoming leaders in the relevant sciences, advanced technologies, and large-scale practical applications. Technological sovereignty is achieved not only through our own products, but also by ensuring that these products are highly competitive and lead the way in their respective fields of knowledge and industry and market segments. It is these results that guarantee resilient technological sovereignty, that validate the many enormous efforts required to achieve it, and—a task no less complex once achieved—to maintain it.

For all these reasons, for the model of technological sovereignty to be successful, it must move away from an autarkic vision—a closed system that prevents it from being technologically competitive. It must also distance itself from the corporate and political marketing messages with which the media constantly “bombards” us to sell to the government and society the absolute necessity—without much justification—of the enormous investments this requires. And, in all cases, public investments aimed at achieving sovereignty in quantum technologies must be made in a manner that respects democratic principles.

National quantum initiatives in emerging countries and LDCs

Quantum science and its technologies must be addressed, understood, recognized, and treated not only from the important scientific, technological, and economic perspectives but, above all, as what they already are: significant disruptive components of a new stage in humanity’s cultural and scientific-technical development. For this reason, it is crucial that public administrations in every country around the world be aware of this new present-and-future reality in their respective nations and, starting now, seek out and create the options best suited to their national circumstances in order to participate in the quantum era.

It is clear that quantum initiatives, such as those illustrated by the data in the color-coded maps in Figures 1 and 2, require enormous investment to be implemented and to achieve reasonable results. Although in all cases the strategy to be followed must be well-reasoned and justified, there is no doubt that the scientific, technological, and economic capabilities of different countries generally shape the scope of their quantum initiatives.

Wealthier countries can define ambitious programs to tackle everything (or almost everything), but as a country’s capabilities are more limited, ensuring the success of its limited investments in quantum initiatives becomes a vital necessity. The constraints faced by less wealthy countries force them to scrutinize not only how much, but also how and in what to invest. To move forward in defining their national initiatives, these countries must be much more selective and restrictive in their strategies and overcome local prejudices regarding the immaturity of quantum technologies, the lack of local talent, and the economic impossibility of building their own quantum computer—arguments that are often used to justify not investing in quantum initiatives, without always realizing that they are putting national sovereignty and security at risk in the coming years.

Quantum initiatives always involve large public investments, so I believe that, given their impact on the national budget and their respective social effects, they should be defined as democratically as possible. And as part of this process, governments should establish safeguards and mechanisms to ensure that these investments yield tangible returns for the local economy and society.

The large number of uncolored countries on those maps has led me to reflect on the fundamental issues that public administrations in emerging economies and LDCs should consider in order to take the first steps toward defining a tailored strategy on quantum technologies that takes into account their development priorities, national risks, key stakeholders, and expected outcomes. A strategy that, ultimately, facilitates their entry into the global quantum race and—however modest it may be—allows them to add color to their place on the map.

Quantum Technologies and Action Plans

With regard to quantum technologies, my opinion is that, given the complexity, ongoing costs, and high risks involved at present (time required to obtain results, standards yet to be defined, regulations, low returns on investment, etc.), those who do not have sufficient capabilities at the outset to invest for years at pure risk should avoid investing in the highly dynamic, and still-to-be-defined segment of quantum computing.

Quantum computers represent a new paradigm in computing systems based on the laws of quantum mechanics, resulting from cutting-edge scientific advances and state-of-the-art technology. Based on different technological approaches, they are still scarce and expensive; they are currently experiencing a period of technological effervescence, and their evolution is fraught with numerous uncertainties. Commercial production requires a highly skilled, specialized, and interdisciplinary workforce; research; specialized cleanrooms; a supply chain capable of providing the necessary components (ultra-pure materials, electronics, ultra-cooling systems, and much more); and a long list of other highly specialized and entirely new elements. For all these reasons, their production is extremely complex and very costly.

The risks inherent in the production of quantum computers today are so high that even the longest-running projects—even if they accumulate notable scientific and technological results but fail to produce commercial quantum computers—are highly likely to eventually shut down. No matter how much scientific value, R&D merit, and national pride there may be in creating laboratory quantum computers with just a few qubits and quantum noise, the sad reality is that they will be of little value to the market and technological sovereignty if they do not lead to the production of commercial computers capable of competing technologically with commercial computers having hundreds or thousands of times more qubits—developed using technologies and architectures that ensure rapid scalability of qubits and accelerate the reduction of quantum noise until it is completely eliminated.

In this context, given the enormous uncertainties surrounding quantum computing—where it remains unclear who will win the quantum computer race—the fact that all potential players have opportunities to participate in the quantum computer race does not mean that this reduces the enormous risks associated with their commercial production. It is fair to say that it is not essential to engage in the production of quantum computers or to own them in order to have a strong quantum initiative—one suited to national capabilities—by focusing on certain quantum technologies (computing, simulation, communications, cryptography, sensors and metrology, imaging, AI, etc.) and on the vast possibilities offered by their practical applications. I would like to highlight South Africa’s initiative as a good example of sound judgment in defining a strategy for quantum technologies: it avoided getting caught up in the quantum computer race and, from the outset, focused on quantum computing and quantum communication, later expanding the technological scope of its activities to include quantum metrology, detection, and imaging.

To work on quantum technologies without owning one’s own computers (whether through production and/or purchase), there is already the alternative of quantum computing as a service (QCaaS), which offers advantages in terms of the time required to gain access and cost-effectiveness. A variety of cloud providers offer access to quantum computers, emulators, and simulators with different technological approaches, types of qubits, numbers of qubits, etc., as well as value-added services and hourly usage rates. However, in cases where public administrations opt for access to quantum computers in the cloud and decide not to invest in their own quantum computers to avoid the high costs and risks inherent in their development and/or purchase, they will need to define procurement policies that prevent their quantum initiatives from being jeopardized. These policies must include, at a minimum, guarantees ensuring access to:

·       Centralized access to multiple platforms and technological approaches

·       Quantum technologies and services that are designed to support different deployment and usage contexts (cloud, on-premises, and hybrid) so they can easily adapt to the country’s security strategies, IT infrastructure, and business needs at any given time

·       Platforms with native capabilities to integrate the results of all phases of the process of creating quantum/classical software solutions: research, development, and services

·       Integration with legacy IT systems

·       Tools that facilitate the development and deployment of hardware-agnostic solutions

·       Types of support and tools for management users and developers

·       Privacy and intellectual property protections for content created using cloud-based quantum computers

·       Comprehensive management of quantum hubs and the national quantum ecosystem [42]

In addition, they must be very meticulous in selecting suppliers, verifying their technological and financial soundness, as well as ensuring that they are capable of offering value-added services aligned with the objectives of their initiatives and under reasonable medium- to long-term financial terms that are appropriate for their national context. And a couple more issues that are also relevant in these selections/decisions:

·       Given that the dominant standards in computing technologies have not yet been defined, avoid creating dependencies on a single technological approach

·       Keep in mind the changing geopolitical situation and avoid creating dependencies on quantum computers produced in a single country

The history of what could be considered national quantum initiatives spans more than 20 years (Figure 9), and as a result, there is now a wide variety of quantum initiatives around the world. Each of these initiatives is unique, and therefore all are valuable for contributing insights into specific problems and strategies.