The Austrian government announced it would invest €107 million (approximately $127 million) in the Quantum Austria funding initiative, drawing on the NextGenerationEU Recovery and Resilience Facility. The announcement on June 21, 2021, coincided with a visit by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.
Led by the Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (BMBWF), the initiative was to be jointly implemented by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) from 2021 through 2026. Funding covered both basic research and the development of practical applications, including research infrastructure, high-performance computing, and quantum computing capabilities. Three rounds of calls for proposals were planned.
Science Minister Heinz Fassmann said the government was “very deliberately investing in a promising future-oriented field in order to further improve Austria’s chances in the race for knowledge, technologies and promising applications.” Quantum Austria was embedded in the broader RTI Strategy 2030 adopted by the federal government in late 2020.