Welcome to TQDR, brought to you by Overmoro — a weekly newsletter bringing you all the must-know updates and developments in quantum technology adoption. If you’re new here, you can check out previous issues on our website.
Off the back of a few weeks of big announcements, the world has been quiet on quantum news in the last week. So today we’re bringing you some original analysis — we’ve been digging into where the global quantum talent hotspots are and where the leaders in Europe are. We’re hard at work on the National Quantum Index and this is a great window into which European countries are taking the lead already.
The Big Story
Paris is the leading European talent hub for quantum
We’ve been hard at work researching and mapping the European talent hotspots for quantum. We’ve taken a targeted approach to develop a talent taxonomy and process that identifies technical quantum roles, as well as supporting engineering, scientific and strategic roles that work in the quantum space. We’ve then compared the major cities across Europe to find out which is taking an early lead in the quantum race.
Here’s our top 10 ranking of European Talent Hubs for Quantum:
Source: LinkedIn, Overmoro analysis
Paris (676) — Europe's quantum capital
There is always an argument about whether London or Paris is the Tech (or AI) capital of Europe, but in quantum it is clear — Paris is ahead on sheer talent volume.
With 60 roles more than London, and nearly 200 more than third-place Munich, Paris has shown itself to be the leading hub of quantum talent. The top 3 of Paris, London and Munich are notably ahead of the rest of Europe, with good reason, and Paris is increasing its reputation as Europe’s leading hub for emerging technologies.
Paris’ lead on quantum is not surprising to those who know the ecosystem, and it looks poised to continue - the city is core to the national strategy, has strong industry ties, an exciting startup landscape, and is producing world-class research into quantum technologies.
Several of Europe’s serious quantum players, such as Alice & Bob and Pasqal, are just a small part of dozens of companies in the city working on quantum. The QuanTiP programme is bringing together researchers from the city’s best universities. Paris is also one of the top investment hubs, and is the headquarters of Quantonation, one of the world’s largest dedicated VC funds for quantum technologies.
London (616) — Leading a diverse UK ecosystem
London coming in second behind Paris will be seen as a surprise to some, but should be seen as a testament to the strength of the UK ecosystem as a whole. The UK has invested heavily in quantum since 2014, and unlike with AI, has made a conscious effort to invest across the country rather than just in the capital.
Notable shout-outs to Cambridge (home to Quantinuum, Riverlane and NuQuantum), Oxford (National Quantum Computing Centre), Glasgow (Centre for Quantum Technology) and Bristol, all of which just missed out on the top 10.
London is still a draw for major technology, finance and professional services talent across all emerging technologies, and quantum is no different. The finance sector is one of the leading investors in quantum technologies, and as Europe’s biggest financial hub, we expect London talent numbers to continue to grow.
Munich (478) — A leading quantum ecosystem
Germany is one of the largest national investors in quantum technologies, dedicating €3bn in 2023. This focus and investment shows, with Germany placing two cities in the top 10 — Munich and Berlin. The former has benefitted from heavy regional funding, making it an attractive proposition for research and industry.
The Bavarian State Government has put serious investment behind the Munich Quantum Valley project, and it’s paying off. It combines the research strength of leading German universities such as TUM and LMU, and is home to offices of major quantum companies such as IQM, Kipu Quantum and planqc.
Madrid (248) — European leader in quantum communications
Spain was slow to announce a national quantum strategy compared to peers, releasing their 2025-2030 plan in April last year, but they already have a strong talent base with two cities in the top 10.
Madrid is the heart of several major quantum projects, including MadQuantum-CM, focused on designing ultra-secure quantum communications networks. This culminated in developing, MadQCI, Europe’s largest quantum communications network, putting Madrid at the centre of quantum communications research.
Delft (234) — Dense innovation centre
Delft has an international reputation for research excellence driven through QuTech, a joint quantum research institute between TU Delft and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO). Startups, spinouts and industry collaborations are all part of the strategy. The result is a remarkable density of talent across Delft and the surrounding Rotterdam–Hague area, letting a small metro compete with Europe's largest cities.
The rest
Copenhagen (228), Helsinki (206), Barcelona (183), Zurich (156) and Berlin (125) round out the top 10.
Copenhagen and Helsinki continue to punch above their weight with strong national focus on industry and research.
Barcelona is home to the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC), and Spain’s first quantum computer, developed by home-grown startup Qilimanjaro.
Zurich and Berlin draw on deep research traditions, with institutions like ETH Zurich and the BERLIN QUANTUM initiative making them attractive to top talent.
What next?
A city view only touches on how each country is shaping up for a quantum future. Over the next few months we’ll be launching the National Quantum Index which will show which European countries are leading the way and how they stack up against global superpowers, the US and China. Follow us on LinkedIn to get more frequent updates, or get in touch if you want to learn more about our findings.
The Quick Reads
Each week we’ll also share a longer list of interesting things that are going on, more technical bits to get your teeth into, and links for further reading.
It was London Tech Week last week, and the big quantum news was the UK government announcing a new Quantum Growth Alliance featuring 10 industry partners. As noted earlier, finance is a big deal for quantum and 3 of the 10 companies — HSBC, Barclays, and Standard Chartered — are from the banking sector.
Alice & Bob published their definition of a logical qubit. The white paper outlines five criteria, aimed at investors, analysts and enterprise buyers, that tighten up a loose definition and helps to identify real fault-tolerant building blocks.
IBM released ffsim, an open-source python library to prototype and validate fermionic quantum circuits.
The Qutebits
We’ll be ending our newsletter with the fun, cute bits of quantum news - the Qutebits (see what we did there?).
What to read: How about Sebastian Hassinger’s new book - The New Quantum Era: An Outsider’s Introduction? Aimed at those going to work with quantum technologies but without the technical background, it’s another book attempting to bring baseline knowledge to those who need it.
What to watch: - How about the video that inspired us to get into Quantum Computing? Domain of Science’s YouTube video The Map of Quantum Computing gives a clear, visual explanation of what quantum computing is, how it’s different from classical computing, and the different types of quantum computing. It’s 4 years old, but it still holds up as one of the best explanations of the technology landscape - a must watch for someone just starting out.
And that’s all the news for this week - we’ll see you again next Monday.
Over the coming months we'll release our first benchmark — the National Quantum Index. It will be the first comprehensive ranking of global quantum adoption, and it will show, clearly, which countries are leading and which are catching up.
In the meantime, we're publishing regular insights and opening early access to our intelligence platform. This newsletter is the best way to follow the stories that matter and our analysis of them. Subscribe, get in touch, and let's talk quantum.