The first quarter of 2023 was defined by the release of two major national quantum strategies, a wave of EU-funded quantum communication infrastructure projects, and the formalization of new international coordination structures. The United Kingdom published a ten-year National Quantum Strategy backed by £2.5 billion in public funding, the most significant single-country commitment announced during the period. Canada launched its own National Quantum Strategy, and its Department of National Defence followed weeks later with Quantum 2030, one of the first military-specific quantum implementation plans from a NATO ally. Across Europe, at least a dozen countries kicked off national quantum communication projects under the Digital Europe Programme, giving the EuroQCI initiative its first operational shape. Meanwhile, the formal establishment of the International Council of Quantum Industry Associations signaled that industry coordination is catching up with government activity.
United Kingdom Publishes National Quantum Strategy with £2.5 Billion Commitment
What happened. On March 15, 2023, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published the National Quantum Strategy, committing £2.5 billion in government funding over ten years from 2024, with an additional £80 million for near-term priorities. The strategy set four goals: maintaining world-leading quantum science, attracting quantum businesses to the UK, driving technology adoption, and creating a supportive regulatory framework. A new Office for Quantum was established within DSIT to coordinate implementation, and quantum was designated one of five priority technologies alongside AI, engineering biology, semiconductors, and future telecoms.
Why it matters. The £2.5 billion figure makes this the largest quantum commitment from a single European country. The creation of a dedicated Office for Quantum within DSIT provides a single coordination point that most national strategies lack; the question is whether it will have the authority and budget control to steer cross-departmental activity. The strategy’s emphasis on adoption and regulation, not only research, marks a shift from the UK’s earlier National Quantum Technologies Programme, which was heavily focused on lab-to-market translation. The explicit mention that the UK attracted roughly 12% of global private equity investment in quantum companies between 2012 and 2022 frames the strategy as an attempt to sustain, rather than build from scratch, a competitive position.
What remains unclear. How the £2.5 billion will be allocated across the ten-year period has not been fully detailed. The relationship between the Office for Quantum and existing bodies (UK Research and Innovation, the National Quantum Computing Centre, the quantum technology hubs) is not yet defined in operational terms. Whether the strategy’s regulatory ambitions will result in UK-specific standards or alignment with EU and international frameworks is also an open question, particularly given the UK’s post-Brexit regulatory autonomy.
Who should care. Quantum technology companies considering European expansion or relocation. Defense and intelligence agencies tracking allied quantum capabilities. Standards bodies working on quantum regulation. Investors benchmarking government co-investment signals.
Canada Launches National Quantum Strategy and Defence Follows with Quantum 2030
What happened. On January 13, Minister François-Philippe Champagne launched Canada’s National Quantum Strategy, backed by CAD 360 million (~USD 265 million) first committed in Budget 2021. The strategy organized activity around three missions (computing, communications, and sensors), with dedicated allocations of CAD 141 million for research, CAD 45 million for talent, and CAD 169 million for commercialization. Two months later, on March 27, the Department of National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces published Quantum 2030, a seven-year implementation plan identifying four technology missions: quantum-enhanced radar, quantum-enhanced lidar, quantum algorithms for defense and security, and quantum networking.
Why it matters. Canada’s strategy is notable for its explicit commercialization emphasis: nearly half the total funding is directed at market development rather than basic research, reflecting the country’s established quantum industry cluster centered on Waterloo. The rapid follow-up from DND/CAF with Quantum 2030 is distinctive among NATO members; few countries have published defense-specific quantum roadmaps with named technology missions. Together, the two documents create a civilian-military alignment that could accelerate dual-use development, particularly in sensing and secure communications.
What remains unclear. The CAD 360 million originated in the 2021 budget, meaning the strategy formalizes previously committed funds rather than announcing new money. Whether the allocated amounts are sufficient to sustain three missions simultaneously over the strategy’s timeline is an open question, particularly given the scale of competing commitments from the UK and EU member states. Quantum 2030’s five calls to action are broadly stated; how DND/CAF will prioritize among the four technology missions, and what procurement vehicles will be used, has not been specified.
Who should care. Canadian quantum startups and university research groups seeking federal funding. Allied defense ministries developing their own quantum roadmaps. Investors tracking government demand signals in quantum sensing and secure communications.
EuroQCI’s First Operational Wave: Over a Dozen National Projects Launch
What happened. Between January and February 2023, at least thirteen EU member states launched national quantum communication infrastructure projects under the Digital Europe Programme’s first terrestrial deployment call (DIGITAL-2021-QCI-01). Projects ranged from Sweden’s NQCIS (SEK 100 million) and Italy’s QUID (18-partner consortium covering seven cities) to smaller-scale deployments in Estonia, Latvia, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Portugal, Belgium, Greece, and Bulgaria. Budgets varied from around €2 million (Slovenia) to approximately €10 million (Greece, Slovakia, Croatia), with co-financing split between the EU and national recovery funds.
Why it matters. This wave transforms EuroQCI from a policy concept into a distributed engineering program. The projects share a common architecture (quantum key distribution over fiber, with provisions for satellite links and cross-border connections), but each national consortium reflects local institutional arrangements, existing telecom infrastructure, and varying levels of prior quantum capability. Italy’s QUID, with its 1,800 km backbone and cross-border links to four neighboring countries, represents the most ambitious terrestrial design. At the other end, projects in the Baltic states are focused on foundational capability-building and standards alignment. The simultaneous launch creates interoperability pressure: these projects will need to connect to each other within a few years, and the degree to which they are coordinating on protocol standards, trust models, and equipment procurement will determine whether the result is a continental network or a patchwork of national testbeds.
What remains unclear. Most projects have 30-month timelines, placing completion in mid-2025. Whether the Commission’s next funding call will bridge these pilots to operational infrastructure is not yet known. The reliance on commercially available QKD equipment raises questions about vendor diversity and technology lock-in. Cross-border connection plans are mentioned in nearly every project description, but no multilateral coordination mechanism for these interfaces has been publicly described.
Who should care. QKD equipment manufacturers and telecom operators. National cybersecurity agencies. EU institutions planning the EuroQCI space segment. Researchers working on quantum network interoperability standards.
International Council of Quantum Industry Associations Formally Established
What happened. On January 31, the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), Quantum Industry Canada (QIC), Japan’s Q-STAR, and the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC) signed a memorandum of understanding in San Francisco to formally establish the International Council of Quantum Industry Associations (ICQIA). The four organizations had been meeting informally for over a year. QED-C Executive Director Celia Merzbacher said the council would help members “develop supply chains, open markets, exchange talent, and support policies.”
Why it matters. ICQIA creates the first formal industry-side counterpart to government-level quantum diplomacy. Its membership covers the four largest quantum technology markets (US, EU, Canada, Japan), all of which are also linked through broader technology alliance structures (G7, Quad, bilateral agreements). The council’s stated agenda, covering standards, intellectual property, market access, and talent mobility, maps directly onto the friction points that quantum companies encounter as they attempt to operate across borders. Whether ICQIA develops into a substantive coordination body or remains a networking forum will depend on its ability to produce joint positions that national governments find useful.
What remains unclear. The MOU does not appear to include members from Australia, South Korea, or other significant quantum markets. How ICQIA will interact with government-to-government initiatives (such as the US-India iCET Quantum Coordination Mechanism or AUKUS Pillar II) has not been specified. The council’s governance structure, decision-making process, and funding model are not detailed in the public announcement.
Who should care. Quantum companies operating in multiple jurisdictions. Trade policy officials working on technology export controls. Standards organizations. National quantum industry associations not yet part of the council.
AUKUS Optimal Pathway Reaffirms Pillar II Quantum Work
What happened. On March 13, the leaders of Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States met at Naval Base Point Loma in San Diego to announce the AUKUS “Optimal Pathway” for delivering nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. The joint leaders statement reaffirmed Pillar II advanced capabilities, including quantum technologies under the AUKUS Quantum Arrangement (AQuA), with experimentation and demonstrations planned before 2025.
Why it matters. While the San Diego announcement was dominated by the submarine deal, the renewed mention of quantum technologies in Pillar II confirms that AQuA remains active at the highest political level. Quantum is one of a small number of Pillar II technology areas (alongside hypersonics, AI, and autonomous systems) that the three governments have consistently named since the partnership’s inception. The planned demonstrations before 2025 suggest that AQuA has moved past scoping and into applied experimentation, though no specific projects or results have been disclosed.
What remains unclear. No public deliverables from AQuA have been released. The specific quantum technology areas under active development (sensing, communications, computing), the institutions involved, and the funding levels remain undisclosed. Whether AQuA’s outputs will feed into broader allied quantum cooperation or remain restricted to the three AUKUS partners is also unknown.
Who should care. Defense technology companies in Australia, the UK, and the US. Allied defense ministries monitoring AUKUS Pillar II progress. Quantum sensing and communications researchers with defense applications.
Japan Launches First Domestic Superconducting Quantum Computer
What happened. On March 27, a consortium led by RIKEN made Japan’s first domestically produced superconducting quantum computer available through a cloud service. The 64-qubit machine, developed under the Q-LEAP program by RIKEN, AIST, NICT, Osaka University, Fujitsu, and NTT, was initially available for non-commercial use to Japanese researchers under joint research agreements. RIKEN and Fujitsu planned to provide a system for industrial use by the end of FY2023.
Why it matters. Japan joins a small group of countries (alongside the US, China, Canada, and a handful of European states) that have demonstrated domestically built superconducting quantum computing hardware. The system complements an IBM Quantum System One already installed at the University of Tokyo since 2021, giving Japanese researchers access to both domestic and foreign platforms. The Q-LEAP program’s decision to open cloud access to researchers first, with industrial access to follow, mirrors the staged rollout model used by IBM and others. The involvement of Fujitsu and NTT signals that Japan’s industrial base is building direct experience with superconducting hardware, not only with quantum software or algorithms.
What remains unclear. The performance characteristics of the 64-qubit system relative to comparable machines from IBM, Google, or other providers have not been publicly benchmarked. Whether the system will be made available to international researchers, or remain restricted to domestic users, is not specified. The timeline and specifications for the planned industrial-use system have not been detailed beyond the FY2023 target.
Who should care. Quantum algorithm and application researchers in Japan. Competing hardware developers tracking national capability milestones. Japanese industrial firms evaluating quantum computing readiness. Government officials tracking national technology sovereignty metrics.
Also in January–March 2023
Israel’s Innovation Authority formed a NIS 115 million quantum computing consortium, its largest ever, bringing together five companies and multiple universities across trapped-ion, superconducting, and software tracks. The United States and the Netherlands signed a joint statement on quantum cooperation in The Hague, adding to the growing web of bilateral QIST agreements. The IETF launched the PQUIP Working Group to coordinate the post-quantum cryptography transition across Internet protocols, filling a gap between protocol-specific working groups. Sweden’s multi-agency coalition published the Swedish Quantum Agenda, identifying nine investment areas and calling for a national strategy to complement the country’s Wallenberg Foundation-funded research base.
Detailed analysis of each development in this briefing, with cross-jurisdictional comparisons and sector-level implications, is available to Quantum Policy Radar subscribers.