The two main sources of funding are. ERDF funds and the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan.
It is hoped that the investment will attract private investment of a further €700 million.
“The digital transformation we are undergoing is driving disruptive technologies that will change the world as we know it,” says Spain’s minister for digital transformation and public function, Óscar López, “one of these is quantum, where competition for global leadership is starting to intensify. The quantum race will not be easy, but Spain can and needs to specialise in specific sectors such as quantum communications. This is a sector that will be transcendental to protect critical environments such as financial transactions and energy distribution networks.”
Target areas are quantum communications, post-quantum cryptography, sensorics and metrology as they relate to defence and navigation.. Quantum clocks will make it possible to navigate with extreme precision, know the position of ships without relying on external technologies and avoid blockages and altered positions, which is key in defence.
This action aims to achieve four strategic objectives:
Strengthen R&D&I to foster knowledge transfer and facilitate the transfer of research to the market.
Create a Spanish quantum market, encouraging the growth and emergence of quantum companies and their ability to access capital and meet demand.
Prepare society for disruptive change by promoting security and reflection on a new digital right, post-quantum privacy.
Consolidate the quantum ecosystem in a way that drives a vision for the country.
Seven priorities are:
- Priority 1: Empowering Spanish companies in quantum technologies.
- Priority 2: Algorithmics and technological convergence between AI and Quantum.
- Priority 3: Spain, a benchmark in quantum communications.
- Priority 4: Demonstrating the impact of quantum sensing and metrology.
- Priority 5: Privacy and confidentiality of information in the post-quantum world.
- Priority 6: Capacity building: infrastructure, research and talent.
- Priority 7: A solid, coordinated and leading Spanish quantum ecosystem in the EU.
The first initiative is the Council of Ministers approving the Royal Decree creating the Quantum Communications Hub. With an investment of €10 million from the Component 16 of the Recovery Plan, it will promote three lines of action: the development of use cases in this field; the promotion of research and development in quantum photonics, and the implementation of training and dissemination initiatives.
The aim of this initiative is to bring together the public actors in the Spanish quantum communications ecosystem to consolidate a research network.
The Quantum Communications Hub will allocate more than €2.4 million to the Institute of Photonic Sciences of Catalonia; more than €1.4 million to the Quantum Information and Communication Research Group of the Polytechnic University of Madrid; €930,000 to the Donostia International Physics Centre Foundation and €480,000 to the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands
