Valérie Pécresse, President of the Île-de-France Regional Council, declares : "We want to continue to position the ile de France Region as the world's leading quantum region. We are going to set up the PAck Quantique Ile de France financed to the tune of 1.5 million euros over 3 years, including 0.6 million euros from 2020 for 3 projects including the one between the EDF Group and the Ile-de-France startup Pasqal."
In this context, the QAP aims to enable the Ile de France region to strengthen its leadership in the quantum field at European level, improve the international competitiveness of Ile de France companies and promote the dynamism and attractiveness of the Ile de France region to encourage new companies to set up in the region.
The QAP thus aims to concretely demonstrate the advantage of quantum technologies for structuring and major industrial issues by relying, on the one hand, on a Francilian quantum ecosystem extremely rich in startups, expertise and talent and on the other hand on quantum resources provided in the short term by the startup Pasqal and in the longer term on a future European hybrid high-performance/quantum computing infrastructure made available by GENCI (Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif).
Philippe Lavocat, President of GENCI, says : "GENCI's cooperation with the 3 selected projects is an exciting challenge that comes at a key moment in France's computing and AI strategy, aiming to soon host an Exascale-class machine equipped with a differentiating element, namely a hybrid HPC/quantum gas pedal device. "
The 3 projects in the PAQ, put to the vote in November, are the forerunner of a more general operation analogous to Pack IA involving the funding of 10 pilot projects lasting an average of 24 months, with regional funding spread over 3 years. Following on from the first projects selected, the PAQ would also like to present new projects in the coming years to the regional vote.
Generally speaking, the pilots are use cases expressed by industrial customers in sectors such as energy, pharmaceuticals and finance, and implemented by Paris Region startups that may enter into collaboration with academic members of the SIRTEQ network, PCQC and Quantum Saclay. The 3 pilots voted by the Ile de France regional council bring together two major groups, EDF and TOTAL, as well as the young company Qubit Pharmaceuticals, startups Pasqal and QCWare; they aim to demonstrate a quantum advantage for use cases with significant impacts for these companies.
EDF and Pasqal have established a research collaboration since 2019 with a new objective through the AQUARE project: Demonstrate the Aadvantage QUAntics for Rsolving complex problems for Eenergy. The implementation of intelligent electric charging stations is a major EDF development axis for electric mobility. The allocation of electric charging stations, depending on their availability and the load on the power grid in real time, is a problem whose complexity evolves exponentially with demand. Traditional high-performance computing (HPC) today lacks the power to handle the problem in real time. The efforts undertaken by Pasqal (creator of a quantum processor based on cold atoms) and EDF aim to solve this optimization problem.
Georges Reymond, CEO of Pasqal, says : "We are building quantum processors based on neutral atoms, a technology born and developed on the Saclay plateau. Thanks to this program, we'll be able to harness the computing power of around 200 qubits to solve problems of industrial scope and extend their fields of application."
Qubit Pharmaceuticals is a Paris-based company specializing in computer-based molecule design. Its primary market is pharmaceutical molecules, with other applications envisaged in the longer term (materials, ionic liquids, etc.). Its partnership with Pasqal through the AQCMED - Avantage Quantics for the Cdesign of MEDdrugs - project. will enable dizzying advances in bringing drug molecules to market, thanks to a factor of 100 reduction in its modeling process on high-performance computing resources. Modeling time could thus be reduced to minutes on quantum technology.
Robert Marino, President of Qubit Pharmaceuticals, says: "We are looking forward to porting our codes and algorithms to Pasqal's quantum computer. Thanks to the computing power implemented, we're getting ever closer to real time without compromising on the accuracy of results. "
The industrial group Total and QCWare are engaged on the AQMuSE project in order to demonstrate the Avantage Quantics for the Multi-.Sourcing Eenergy and solve, in particular, optimization problems related to freight and oil logistics. The industrial research project carried out by QCWare focuses on a problem called Generalized Pooling Problem with many possible applications to industrial sectors other than energy, such as wastewater recycling.
Christophe Jurczak, President of the Le Lab Quantique association, says : "We are very pleased to be associated with the PAck Quantique, a unique initiative in the world that aims to drastically reduce the obstacles that today limit, beyond the very performance of quantum processors, co-developments between technology developers (hardware and software) and customers destined to benefit from quantum acceleration. It's a first step, and with GENCI we're thinking of federating all the players within an embodied place - La Maison du Quantique - to make it easier for manufacturers to connect with the quantum ecosystem and ensure its animation. "