By Amara Graps

Germans are Less Attached to their Quantum Computers

“How important is it for you, where the quantum computer was developed?” might invoke forms of pride, if one was attached to the company, to the town, to the university (spin-off), or to the quantum computer’s country.  

However, only about a quarter of the German respondents in QuEra’s July 2024 Survey felt that Germany producing its own QPU was important. See Figure 8 of the QuEra  Survey Report: The Current and Future State of Quantum Computing July 2024.

Figure. Reproduced from Figure 8 from the QuEra:  Survey Report: The Current and Future State of Quantum Computing July 2024.

Let’s see if we can understand why.

Attachment to one’s local region, often invokes a sense of loyalty. Let’s map out these QPU vendors in Germany.

German Companies Developing QPUs

There are at least six quantum computer companies, which are developing QPUs in Germany. I have identified the company’s QPU modality, its home town, if it might be a university spin-off, and if I could find patents.

CompanyModalityLocationSpin-Off?Patent(s)?
planqcNeutral AtomGarching bei Munich ?
eleQtronTrapped IonSiegen Yes
XeedQNV in DiamondLeipzig Co-founder: 1 Pending
SaxonQNV in DiamondLeipzigYesCEO: 8 Pending
Q.ANTPhotonicStuttgart CEO/ QUANT : 7/8 Pending
DiatopeNV in DiamondUlmYes?

German Quantum Computing Company Clusters

As seen on the Germany map (next Figure) for the QPU companies, there are two QPU cluster locations.

  1. Leipzig in Germany’s Center-East, and
  2. Munich and vicinity in the South-East , with the latter being a formal association: the Munich Quantum Valley.

The two cities don’t show a QPU cluster: Siegen, in the Central West and Stuttgart in the South-West of the country.   See the Quantum Alliance, below, however for a different kind of collaboration.

The Munich Quantum Valley (MQV) encapsulates the Munich cluster, with planqc, a Neutral Atom quantum computer company, Quantum Diamonds, an NV in Diamond sensor company, and a collection of smaller companies and large universities and institutes. MQV consists of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW), the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG), the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), the Max Planck Society (MPG), and the Technical University of Munich (TUM). MQV expands on decades of quantum science and technology expertise at research facilities and universities in Bavaria and the Munich region.

Figure. Six cities of the home towns of the QPU companies with the NV diamond

Company: Element 6,  pinned in Google Earth.

German Quantum Technology Clusters

It’s worth, additionally, to mention these two local quantum technology clusters, which, similarly to the Munich Quantum Valley,   incorporates locality and collaboration:

German Quantum Computer Company Spin-Offs

What about feelings of attachment to the university (spin-off)?

The spin-off phenomenon for quantum computer vendors from German universities and institutes is less frequent, relatively, in Germany, than in the U.K. or in the U.S. These two QPU vendors are spin-offs:

  • SaxonQ is a spin-off from Leipzig University and
  • Diatope is a spin-off off from the Institute for Quantum Optics at Ulm University.

If we broaden the QPU’s academic origin to other business entities, Q.ANT is a spin-off and wholly-owned subsidiary of the 100-year-old, multinational engineering company: TRUMPF, with its ~20K employees.

Two more examples of German quantum -technology- spin-offs are

  • HQS from Karlsruhe Inst. Technology, and
  • Quantum Diamonds, from the Technical University of Munich.

In summary, German attachment to one’s country’s QPU is reasonable when considering the only two existing QPU city-clusters, and the only two university spin-offs. With respect to the QPUs, the German quantum Ecosystem is fragmented.

In Part Two, we’ll continue to look at Germany’s Ecosystem, in a business sense (Investments and Patents), and in GQI’s PESTEL (political, economic, social, technological, environmental, and legal) perspective.

Here is a PESTEL teaser. Germany’s highest PESTEL dimension is Technological: #5 out of 33, sorted in this dimension. See next figure.

Figure. From GQI’s comprehensive Quantum Ecosystems Playbook where a country-by-country assessment can be made, including direct country-to-country comparison. (*)

(*) If you are interested to learn more, please don’t hesitate to contact [email protected].

September 15, 2024

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