Jefferies x Euronext European Disruptive Tech Conference | Quantum Computing I
This article draws on the Quantum Computing I panel at the Jefferies x Euronext European Disruptive Tech Conference, moderated by Mathieu Caron of Euronext, with Wasiq Bokhari (CEO, Pasqal), Théau Peronnin (CEO, Alice & Bob), Joseph Mikael (Vice President, Quobly) and Simon Thomas (CEO, Paragraf).
For much of the past decade, progress in quantum computing was described in the language of physics: qubit counts, fidelities and coherence times. That vocabulary is giving way to one any infrastructure investor would recognize. Cost per operation, energy, floor space and customer return now set the terms, and the companies best placed for the sector’s next phase are already building around them.
Commercial traction is arriving ahead of fault tolerance
Useful quantum computing is often assumed to depend on fault-tolerant machines, expected towards the end of the decade. Pasqal’s customer base suggests some value can be captured sooner. In optimization, Crédit Agricole plans to move portfolio and risk work developed with Pasqal over three years into production, the first bank to announce such a step. In graph-based machine learning, the company works on upstream operations for Saudi Aramco. In materials simulation, work with Los Alamos National Laboratory produced predictions about a magnetic material that were later confirmed in the lab, and has since led to an agreement with USA Rare Earth on rare earth separation.
These engagements matter beyond the revenue they generate. A customer that has worked with a provider for several years is likely to stay with it as the hardware matures. “A customer never asks the question, how do you build your product,” observes Wasiq Bokhari (CEO of Pasqal). “What customers want to know is whether their problem gets solved at the right unit economics”.
A quantum computer should be valued like any other computer
Quantum has long carried a mystique that can cloud otherwise disciplined judgement. “At the end of the day, we are building a computer,” says Théau Peronnin (CEO, Alice & Bob),
“and a computer is judged on its cost per operation and its speed”.
The bar for beating classical machines is now well defined: something like 100 to 200 logical qubits operating with error rates below one in a million. No system has reached it yet. Companies are therefore sorting into two models. Infrastructure players focus on deployment and integration with high-performance computing, while frontier labs concentrate on reaching that threshold first with a defensible architecture. That distinction gives investors a clearer basis for comparing businesses that can look similar from the outside.
On timing, Peronnin is emphatic, calling it “dead certain” that today’s internet encryption will be broken by 2032.
Energy and footprint will shape who can scale
Quobly’s view is that the largest players will manage to scale their machines, which makes the cost of doing so the more meaningful question. Some architectures could require around 100 megawatts, roughly a tenth of a nuclear power plant’s output, and a footprint the size of a football stadium. Data center projects are already meeting local opposition over exactly these demands.
Pasqal offered a contrasting data point. Its system runs without cryogenic cooling and draws about 3.5 kilowatts, comparable to two hair dryers. The same pressures now shaping AI infrastructure are reaching quantum early, and architectures that keep power and space requirements low will have a smoother path to deployment.
Industrial partnerships are becoming a competitive moat
Chip designs typically move from academic fabrication lines to pilot lines and only then to commercial foundries. Two years ago, Quobly skipped the intermediate steps and went directly to STMicroelectronics, producing silicon qubits in a facility that also makes smartphone chips. The company now holds an exclusive manufacturing partnership and has secured its materials supply for the next decade.
In a sector where competitors often depend on the same handful of foundries, exclusive access to production capacity can become a lasting advantage. Paragraf is pursuing a similar path in materials. Having grown from university spinout to pilot fab, it has launched a financing round, which Simon Thomas (CEO, Paragraf) hopes will be its last as a private company, to build a high-volume foundry for two-dimensional materials.
Materials could be quantum’s most underrated market
Quantum computers are expected to help design new materials, and new materials can in turn make quantum computers smaller, cheaper and more efficient. Paragraf’s graphene-based components, which add almost no heat to a cryogenic system, are increasingly sought by quantum companies for carrying signals from qubits to the outside world.
Thomas believes manufacturers have a crucial role to play in making this feedback loop successful. AI companies regularly bring him promising materials they have modelled, enthusiastic about the properties on screen. His first question is always the same: “So how do you make it?” The gap between simulated materials and manufactured ones remains wide, and quantum simulation could help close it. Because energy, compute and robotics all depend on materials, this loop may give quantum a route into the kind of self-reinforcing improvement cycles that have produced the largest AI companies.
Sovereignty is a set of trade-offs to manage
European sovereignty should be treated pragmatically. Alice & Bob benefits from France’s PROQCIMA defense procurement program, a source of non-dilutive funding, and staying outside US export controls gives it freedom over whom it sells to. Quobly defines sovereignty as always having a choice of supplier. Pasqal balances commitments to the French state with customers across several regions. For European companies, that freedom to choose partners and markets may prove as valuable as the procurement contracts that come with it.
The next questions are commercial ones
No one would suggest that the physics are solved. However, the questions now shaping the sector are familiar from any capital-intensive technology: who controls manufacturing, how much energy a system consumes, and whether customers see a return. European companies that can answer them convincingly are well positioned as quantum computing moves into its next stage of financing and consolidation.
