GSS EU Science Funding Gateway

European Quantum Excellence Centres (QECs) will foster the development of an ecosystem of quantum programming facilities, application libraries, and a skilled workforce, ultimately the discovery of new quantum-oriented applications, fostering knowledge and uptake for these new technologies.

The QECs should be technology-agnostic with a focus on quantum applications for end-users in science and industry.

QECs should:

• contribute to a library of new quantum applications and open source software platforms used for building quantum computing and simulation applications for specific areas
• provide services supporting different usage models for the community needs, including developing, maintaining, optimising (if needed re-designing) and scaling quantum applications, addressing the full scientific/industrial workflow, testing and validating codes and quality assurance
• create meeting places for users and organisations working on similar nascent technologies, and offer specialised training and capacity building measures to develop the human capital resources for increased adoption of quantum computing in industry and academia
• federate capabilities around Europe, exploiting available competences, and ensuring multi-disciplinarity and synergies with national/local programmes.

Proposals should include a strategy for skills development, associating required stakeholders when relevant, and plans to allow users from different backgrounds to register and receive support for their issues while experimenting with different quantum computing platforms.

Proposals should include the enhancement of existing quantum applications and their integration with HPC/classical applications towards highly scalable, optimised codes. Proposals should describe envisaged collaborations with the EuroHPC quantum computing infrastructure to implement a robust and reliable automated deployment process for quantum applications, in order to make novel developments timely available to the European quantum user communities.

Whenever possible, participants in the QECs should work together to apply for patents for the developed QCS systems and accompanying and/or embedded software.