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Austria in the fast lane in quantum technology

03. December 2024

From ambitious startups to extensive state funding programmes: Austria is a promising business location for innovative companies and investors in the field of quantum technology. This enables progress and sustainable growth, a fact which is also demonstrated by successful young companies such as ParityQC, Quantum Industries and qtlabs.

The strong link between academic research and industry in Austria is crucial for the emergence of commercial applications. Magdalena Hauser and Wolfgang Lechner, co-CEOs of the first quantum architecture company ParityQC, agree. "For ParityQC, this was the perfect environment to establish our company as a spin-off of the University of Innsbruck and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, benefitting from a large network of renowned academic institutions and experts."

Together with the Australian-German company Quantum Brilliance, ParityQC has also managed to advance to the penultimate phase of an exciting competition organised by the German Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity, alongside two other applicants. The ambitious goal is to develop the first mobile quantum computer.

Considerable economic potential

Organisations such as the Austrian Science Fund (ASF) and the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) also support startups. They benefit from good international networking. For example, ParityQC became one of the first members of the Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC), which now has close to 200 members throughout Europe. The company is working on operating systems and hardware for quantum computers.

"The market for quantum computing is still at an early stage and the contributions of countries play a significant role in building successful companies and ecosystems by being the first customer and supporting research and development," says Magdalena Hauser. Wolfgang Lechner adds: "As ParityQC, we operate globally while investing in setting up our headquarters in Innsbruck and maintaining a close cooperation with universities, research and technology organisations and companies worldwide."

Quantum-secure communication

Quantum Technology Laboratories (qtlabs) is a successful spin-off of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (AAS). It is the only company to develop telescopes with quantum receivers and satellite tracking software designed for use in unbreakable quantum communication. For this reason, qtlabs was granted the Austrian Phoenix Founders Award 2023. qtlabs' customers already include the EU Commission as well as satellite and critical infrastructure companies.

Quantum Industries (QI) is another AAS spin-off. Its focus is on tap-proof quantum cryptography for fibre optic cables. Put simply, QI is working on a quantum network with unbreakable encryption. Data transfer is to be secured by entangled light particles based on the laws of nature.

Other exciting quantum technology companies include QMware, which is working on cloud solutions, planqc, which has developed a technology that can make quantum computing more scalable, and Alpine Quantum Technologies (AQT), which develops and builds quantum computers and quantum hardware components.