Quantum Computing
Dismissed as distant, compounding fast, and Europe's to play
Quantum is the matrix's belief-versus-data gap in its purest form. Professionals rank it last of the five technologies and treat it as a problem for another day: around nine in ten expect impact only in two years or more, or never, and more than half expect little or no impact at all. A technology deemed perennially “two years away.”
Yet the clock is already running. Post-quantum standards exist, harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks are already being staged, and the gap between available protection and adoption is where the risk sits. The frontier is also moving closer: new company formation rose 88% in a year, second only to agentic and generative AI. From its low base, quantum is compounding faster than almost anything in the matrix.
This is where Europe is best placed: several of its countries rank among the world's research leaders, and European companies are already drawing real funding, even as capital has yet to catch up. That head start lasts only as long as the doubt does.
Read more: A New Path with Photonic Quantum Computing · Analog Computing: Are the Billions Invested in GPUs Going to Waste?