From 25-28 of February, the Quantum Flagship made its official presentation at the Mobile World Congress 2019 in Barcelona with over 100,000 visitors attending one of the largest mobile events in the world. Coordinated by ICFO, the recently launched flagship stand had a singular space devoted to quantum technologies within the NEXTech Hall, aiming to give visitors a glimpse at how these quantum technologies seek to radically improve the field of telecommunications.

The Quantum Flagship space provided an overview of the initiative, its areas of research, and its roadmap for the next 10 years. In particular, it focused on the objectives expected to achieve in the area of quantum communications, giving an introduction to the four projects that have been selected for this area (CIVIQ, QIA, UNIQORN, QRANGE) and also including a prototype of a quantum random number generator chip provided by the company Quside, a partner of the flagship.

Visitors to the stand were able to talk and share their interests with researchers and representatives from the different quantum communications projects: Prof. Valerio Pruneri (coordinator of CiViQ and partner of Qrange) and representative of UNIQORN; Prof. Antonio Acín (partner of CiViQ, Qrange and QCN representative of Spain); Prof. Hugues de Riedmatten (partner of QIA); Dr. Joseph Bowles (partner of Qrange); Dr. Samuele Grandi (partner of QIA); Dr. Sebastian Etcheverry (partner of CiViQ); and Dr. Carlos Abellan and Dr. Domenico Tulli, founders from Quside.

With a duration of 10 years and a budget of at least EUR 1 billion each, FET Flagships are the among the most ambitious research projects funded by the European Commission. The Quantum Flagship’s main goal is to take and transfer the research from the lab to the market into commercial applications that will help create the next generation of disruptive technologies, searching to position Europe as a worldwide knowledge-based industrial and technological leader in this innovative field.