Quantum computing: A tech race Europe could win?

Alice & Bob may sound like an ice-cream company, but the 200-strong team of 20 and 30-somethings you see buzzing around this hive of a start-up do some very serious science, and will soon, says co-founder and CEO Théau Peronnin, be doing serious business too."Physicists used to doubt it was possible to leverage the weird behaviour of particles in the quantum. They don't anymore.Now we know they work, and in a few years we will have reliable quantum computers that we can hook up to High Performance Computers (HPCs) in data centres to exponentially increase their computing power," says Peronnin."It's not about being faster. It's about being so dramatically faster that you change what is feasible. We will be able to solve problems that are absolutely intractable with classical computers," he says.For example? "It will make medicine an exact science." He is only half joking. "At the moment, the development of new medicines is largely a question of trial and error." With quantum computers, it will be possible to run massive computes to see how different molecules react with each other to find out what works and with what side-effects. The prize, then, for the company that is first to build a reliable quantum computer at scale is potentially enormous. It will be "winner-takes-all", as it was for classical computers and IBM, predicts Peronnin. And, he reckons, there is a fighting chance that his or another French company will be that winner.The biggest obstacle in quantum computing is fragility which leads to errors.Peronnin notes big players are shifting towards similar ideas: Google acquired Atlantic Quantum, while others are pursuing cousins of cat qubits. Alice & Bob now stands "shoulder to shoulder" with its US competitors, Peronnin says.They're one of France's "national champions" under the PROQCIMA program, a government initiative to develop a useful quatum computer.And France has a lot more than Alice & Bob going on. In fact, its companies represent between them the full range of qubit types – all the routes physicists are hoping will lead to the first reliable and ultra-powerful quantum computer."If you look at the quantum computing world in France, we have six companies right now, and two being created," says Olivier Ezratty, an academic whose 1500-page compendium Understanding Quantum Technologies is a popular free download on the internet.He says there are four other "important" French quantum computing firms: Pasqal, Quandela, Quobly and C12.Ezratty says they have one advantage in common. "Most of them are in a very favourable position in the cost of the machine and the energetic cost," he says.Getty ImagesAlice & Bob faces global competition including from IBMElsewhere in Europe, the biggest player is Finland's IQM that announced in February that it would become the first listed European quantum company.