French Quantum Computing Companies 2026

\n Alice & Bob was founded in 2020 in Paris to develop fault-tolerant quantum computers using cat qubits — a type of superconducting qubit in which the encoding suppresses bit-flip errors, reducing the physical qubit overhead required for error correction by up to 200-fold compared to conventional approaches. The cat qubit architecture was independently adopted by Amazon for its own quantum research, validating the approach. In January 2025, Alice & Bob raised a €104 million Series B led by existing investors, with Bpifrance participating through France’s Deeptech 2030 Fund and Defense Innovation Fund. The company joined NVIDIA’s NVQLink programme in October 2025, integrating its QPUs with NVIDIA GPUs for real-time fault-tolerant hybrid computing. In the same month, Alice & Bob acquired the SQUID-6 UHV deposition system from PLASSYS-BESTEK, backed by France’s Defense Innovation Agency (AID) under the ULTRACAT project, marking a step toward industrial-scale cat qubit chip fabrication. The company launched a plan to hire 100 new employees by mid-2026, targeting a utility-scale quantum computer by 2030. Alice & Bob was named to France’s prestigious Next40 list in June 2025, recognising it as one of France’s most promising scale-ups.\n

\n PASQAL was founded in 2019 as a spinout from Institut d’Optique, building on neutral atom quantum computing research co-pioneered by Professor Alain Aspect, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022. The company develops full-stack neutral atom quantum processors, merging with Dutch software startup Qu&Co in 2022 to expand its software and applications offering. PASQAL has raised over $145 million across public and private sources, with Bpifrance, Quantonation, and strategic investors including Thales and Sumitomo among its backers. The company targets 10,000 qubits with scalable logical qubit architecture in 2026 using its neutral atom platform. In October 2025, PASQAL announced it would join NVIDIA’s NVQLink platform, integrating its QPUs with NVIDIA’s accelerated computing stack for hybrid quantum-AI workloads. PASQAL also confirmed plans to open its US headquarters at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, and made its processors available on Scaleway’s cloud platform via a Quantum-as-a-Service (QaaS) integration. Key enterprise partnerships include BMW (manufacturing optimisation), Capgemini and KAIST. PASQAL was named to France’s French Tech 120 list in June 2025.\n

\n Quandela was founded in 2017 in Palaiseau as a spinout from CNRS and the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, developing photonic quantum computers based on high-purity semiconductor quantum dot single-photon sources. The company manufactures its quantum devices at a semiconductor pilot line in Palaiseau and integrates them at its factory in Massy. In October 2025, Quandela delivered Lucy — a 12-qubit universal digital photonic quantum computer — to CEA’s Très Grand Centre de calcul (TGCC) under the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, as part of the EuroQCS-France consortium led by GENCI. The system, built with 80% European-sourced components, will be coupled to the Joliot-Curie supercomputer in 2026 and connected to the Franco-European exascale machine Alice Recoque. Quandela’s open-source Perceval Python framework is used by over 950 researchers worldwide. In November 2025, the company announced a partnership with OVHcloud to make its BELENOS (12-qubit) and CANOPUS (24-qubit) processors available via sovereign cloud in mid-2026. It also announced a collaboration with NVIDIA achieving a 20,000x acceleration in photonic quantum circuit simulation using CUDA-Q, and launched MerLin — the first programming environment dedicated to quantum machine learning, integrated with PyTorch and scikit-learn. Quandela and Welinq have partnered to develop custom quantum interconnects for clusters of photonic quantum computers.\n

\n Quobly is developing silicon spin qubits using Fully Depleted Silicon-on-Insulator (FD-SOI) technology — the same semiconductor process used in conventional microelectronics manufacturing — with a roadmap targeting 100 physical qubits on a commercial chip via STMicroelectronics. The company was founded from research at CEA-Leti in Grenoble, one of Europe’s leading semiconductor research institutes, and its strategy is built around leveraging Europe’s existing industrial chip fabrication infrastructure rather than requiring dedicated quantum foundries. In December 2025, Quobly reached a landmark milestone when its custom 28Si FD-SOI wafers from Soitec entered STMicroelectronics’ 300mm production line in Crolles — the first integration of isotopically enriched silicon into a high-volume commercial semiconductor fab, establishing an end-to-end supply chain from advanced materials to quantum circuits entirely within Europe. Bpifrance invested €15 million into Quobly to accelerate this industrial production track. The company is one of five participants in the PROQCIMA competition and is backed by Quantonation.\n

\n C12 Quantum Electronics was founded in Paris and is developing a distinct qubit approach based on single-electron spins in suspended carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Carbon nanotubes are placed above silicon chips and suspended to minimise decoherence from substrate noise, an engineering strategy aimed at achieving longer coherence times than conventional superconducting qubits. The CNT approach also integrates on silicon, providing a potential route to CMOS-compatible quantum chip fabrication. C12’s architecture features a microwave resonator connecting qubits and integration on a silicon wafer. The company is one of five participants in the French government’s PROQCIMA competition, competing for access to the programme’s €500 million in funding to deliver a fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2030. C12 has received backing from Bpifrance and is part of the broader Plan Quantique ecosystem of French quantum hardware developers.\n

\n Welinq is developing full-stack quantum interconnects and quantum memory technology to enable modular quantum computing and quantum networking. The company’s core technology converts quantum states between matter-based quantum memories and photonic channels — a critical enabling layer for linking quantum processors across nodes, scaling modular quantum computers beyond single-chip limits, and building distributed quantum networks. Welinq has partnered with Quandela to develop custom quantum interconnects for clusters of photonic quantum computers, and is part of the Meet-Q initiative alongside QphoX and Sorbonne University focused on realising optical quantum interconnects for hybrid scalable quantum systems. The company has received backing from Bpifrance as part of France’s broader quantum investment portfolio. Welinq is positioned as an infrastructure layer supplier for the quantum computing and communications market, serving both hardware companies and end-user deployments.\n

\n CryptoNext Security is a Paris-based post-quantum cryptography company providing software libraries and migration tools to help organisations transition from classical public-key cryptography to quantum-resistant algorithms. The company’s Crypto Library implements quantum-safe encryption and digital signature schemes, including algorithms aligned with NIST’s post-quantum cryptography standardisation programme. CryptoNext’s solutions target use cases in secure end-to-end communications, electronic signatures and protection against harvest-now-decrypt-later attacks, where adversaries collect encrypted data today to decrypt it once a cryptographically relevant quantum computer becomes available. The company operates against the backdrop of growing French government and industrial urgency around post-quantum security: in 2025, Thales and CEA launched the joint GIVERNY project to test the resistance of two NIST-standardised post-quantum signature algorithms to attack, reflecting the strategic importance France places on sovereign post-quantum cryptographic capability.\n

\n Qubit Pharmaceuticals is a Paris-based company applying quantum computing to drug discovery, focusing on molecular simulation and the calculation of binding free energies for pharmaceutical candidates. The company uses hybrid classical-quantum algorithms to simulate molecular interactions at a level of accuracy that conventional methods struggle to achieve efficiently, targeting applications in early-stage drug development for cancer and inflammatory diseases. In December 2025, in collaboration with Sorbonne University, Qubit Pharmaceuticals published results demonstrating that quantum computers can perform molecular calculations faster than previously believed physically possible, overturning one of the field’s theoretical limits and providing a new benchmark for quantum advantage in life sciences. The company operates at the intersection of quantum computing, computational chemistry and pharmaceutical R&D, in a sector where major drug companies including Merck and BASF have made strategic commitments to quantum-accelerated discovery pipelines.\n