Second House of Quantum opens in Delft

Many noteworthy things happened in the realm of European tech yesterday. However, not all involved the King of Sweden — and quantum.

To see the representative of such a traditional office in conjunction with the most out-there groundbreaking tech almost causes a bit of a cognitive dissonance. Nonetheless, H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf attended the inauguration of the second House of Quantum building in Delft, the Netherlands, on Wednesday. 

The mission of House of Quantum is to create a national campus for the Dutch quantum ecosystem. It is a co-working space that also offers plug-and-play labs and other facilities otherwise difficult to access for individual startups. 

Its second building, DT01, welcomed its first members Q*Bird (which just launched a Quantum Key Distribution trial with the Port of Rotterdam), Equal1, OPNT, Xairos, and Qblox. Other existing members include Single Quantum, Orange Quantum Systems, and QuantrolOx. 

The first House of Quantum building opened just last year. “The rapid growth of the House of Quantum once again demonstrates the importance of continuing to invest in quantum technology,” said Jesse Robbers, director of industry and digital infrastructure at Quantum Delta NL.

QDNL and QSIP

House of Quantum is part of the Quantum Delta NL initiative. This is an ecosystem built around three catalyst programmes — quantum computing and simulation, a national quantum network, and quantum sensing applications. It also supports five innovation hubs around the Netherlands: QDNL Delft, QDNL Amsterdam, QDNL Leiden, QDNL Eindhoven, and QDNL Twente.

It will also open campuses in the other hubs mentioned above in the future. Furthermore, QDNL sits on the board of QSIP — Quantum Sweden Innovation Platform, an initiative to support the growth of a Swedish, globally competitive and attractive quantum industry, founded as recently as November last year. QDNL is funded by the Dutch National Growth Fund with €615mn from the dedicated quantum program.

The Netherlands first formed a national quantum agenda in 2019. It took until last year for Sweden’s innovation council Vinnova to publish a report concluding that Sweden even needs one. Royal attention aside, let’s hope it will not be a case of too little too late for the Nordic country as quantum technologies continue to reach milestone after milestone across the globe.