Quantum strategy offers opportunity for a new start in German IT

The Federal Cabinet today presented its new "Quantum Technologies Action Plan". Bitkom President Achim Berg explains: 

"Bitkom welcomes the German government's "Quantum Technologies Action Concept" and sees it as an opportunity for a successful new start in German IT. At the same time, Bitkom calls for more funding and a stronger focus on relevant software and industry-related applications. Quantum technologies do not represent a further development of the previous binary IT, which calculates with zeros and ones. Quantum computing will radically change IT, the cards will be reshuffled worldwide and this means a huge opportunity for Germany. Such an opportunity will not come again so quickly, and we must make consistent use of it. 

The traffic light coalition wants to develop Germany into an internationally competitive location for quantum technologies. With the expansion of public funding to three billion euros for research and application of quantum technologies, it is succeeding in keeping pace, at least by European standards - the UK, for example, recently announced 2.8 billion euros as part of its national quantum strategy. In China and the USA, however, incomparably higher sums are being invested. In order to catch up here and achieve the ambitious goals of the action plan, it is all the more important to use the funds quickly and in a targeted manner. Companies must be given greater support in gaining rapid access to quantum technologies, and the potential benefits of the technology must be made more visible in practice. Here, the German government's action plan still focuses too much on the development of quantum technology hardware. A stronger focus on the development of software as well as industry-relevant applications based on real business cases is also urgently needed. In addition, the paper lacks a strategy for the promotion of skilled workers and the development of education and training programs for quantum technologies; corresponding measures for this must already be considered today. 

Quantum technologies and especially quantum computing have made enormous progress in recent years and are becoming increasingly relevant for the economy. The potential applications are diverse and range from drug research and supply chain optimization to the prediction of financial crises. Now that Germany has lost out internationally in traditional IT, quantum technologies offer the chance for a real fresh start. We should definitely take advantage of this now."   

More information on the potential of quantum computing in Germany can be found in the current Bitkom position paper: Quantum computing in Germany: unlocking potential and activating the economy (german).