At AFQC 2025, we asked experts from across the ecosystem two simple questions: What are the biggest challenges facing our ecosystem? And what will it take to overcome them?
Here are the answers: Nine challenges for startups, technologies and the ecosystem with many immediately realisable solutions. A guide to creating a strong ecosystem for powerful quantum computing technologies and competitive startups.
This white paper is the collaborative effort of experts from across the quantum computing ecosystem at AFQC 2025.
Thanks to our arena heralds: Juliette de la Rie, Strong Ecosystems · Robert Wille, Performing Technologies · Marius Almstedt, Competitive Startups.
Photos: Samuel Mindermann – Design: Olli Design – Live: Kontrapunkt
The discussion continues at AFQC 2026. Register now.
Robert Axmann: “Cooperation despite competition is difficult, but absolutely necessary.”
Robert, what is your AFQC summary?
The development of technologies is important, but we also need the framework conditions to make them work. In particular, we need reliable funding, manageable administration and confidence in their usefulness. This is exactly where we – and an effective funding policy – need to start.
There is plenty of money available: Germany alone has invested two billion euros in quantum computing in recent years!
This has had a real global impact. What we need now, however, are long-term roadmaps instead of short-term funding and more flexible funding logics so that the players can reliably plan, invest and ultimately deliver.
The topic of “proof of benefit” came up again and again in the workshops. Do we have a crisis of confidence?
No, this is primarily a sign that perceptions have changed. We have made enormous technological progress. We know that quantum can work. What we need now is for the demand side to wake up. And here we need to show further progress, with real use cases and case studies that increase the demand for quantum computing resources and strengthen the ecosystem in the long term.
What does that mean in concrete terms?
Our AFQC participants were clear about this: Short-term case studies and proofs of concept, validation by end customers, clearly communicated success stories and easy access to hardware and platforms. This approach helps us not only to claim the benefits, but also to prove them in practice. But one thing is clear: the path from basic research to application is rocky and steep.
Someone has said that we should evolve from a technology push to a market pull. What about the framework conditions?
I’m not the only one who immediately thinks of bureaucracy. Some participants said that administrative fragmentation and overhead cost a lot of time, money and even credibility. Everyone involved in government programmes – and this applies to the entire quantum field, from research groups to quantum departments in industrial companies – is familiar with this. There is also a strong demand for less formality, fewer reports and shorter tendering phases. With the DLR QCI, we have already sped up the process considerably, but there is of course still a lot to do. We could make immediate progress by better integrating the ecosystem: Bringing together research, start-ups and industry, developing common standards and a common language, and creating tools for ecosystem integration. For example, platforms, brokerage services and a truly interdisciplinary, international talent pool were mentioned at the AFQC. This reduces friction and increases speed.
We also often talk about this type of collaboration internally. From the feedback at the AFQC, I know that this is a common wish of many participants, but that it is difficult in competition practice.
I have also realised this. People who are in direct competition with each other – or who have to be very careful with their intellectual property – are expected to work closely together. This creates knowledge silos, sometimes with significant overlaps, which then compete with each other for scarce resources. It is incredibly important right now that we transform these competing approaches into scalable, market-relevant solutions more quickly. Here too, reliable, long-term government support can make things possible. Co-operation despite competition is difficult, but absolutely necessary.
