sakkmesterke - stock.adobe.com European Union deep tech plan too late for quantum champions IQM and Pasqal European quantum computing firms hurry to get US stock exchange listings so they can be predator not prey in a coming wave of consolidation Europe’s two largest quantum computing firms announced plans to go public on the US stock market just as the European Commission was finalising urgent plans to stop deep tech firms selling to overseas investors. The launch of hurried bids by Finland’s IQM and France’s Pasqal to raise the money they need to make quicker progress in developing viable quantum computer systems coincided with the start of another urgent programme, by the US Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (Darpa). The programme pledged to prove an alternative quantum computing architecture was feasible before leading quantum firms wasted any more time and money on current dominant designs, which it said would fail. Quantum computing firms need hundreds of millions of euros from investors to develop technology that is still so advanced that most expect it will be 2030 with hundreds of millions more spent before they deliver systems capable of meeting expectations. The situation is characteristic of so-called deep tech firms that Europe is now striving urgently to help, in sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI), biotech, robotics and space. The upfront cost of research and development is high for deep tech firms trying to engineer futuristic products from recent scientific breakthroughs, and the time they need to deliver a commercial product is often decades long. As a consequence, the risk that it will never deliver at all is great enough that in Europe, at least, investors have been reluctant to put up funding for all but their early stages of growth. EU rescue bid As IQM and Pasqal hatched plans to raise