FWMedia is opening a new season of its show Le Club, which we have decided to rename FW PERSPECTIVES. In collaboration with CanalChat Grandialogue, it is a conversation and analysis format dedicated to the long trajectories of innovation, industry and power. The objective is to understand what really structures technologies, markets and the industrial, political and societal choices that result from them.
We start with an exchange devoted to quantum technologies, in the company of two recognized figures in the ecosystem. Fanny Buttondirector of quantum at OVHcloud and co-founder of France Quantum, works closely with companies seeking to structure their first uses. Olivier Ezrattyauthor of Understanding Quantum Technologieshas for several years been offering a rigorous reading of scientific advances, industrial dynamics and international balance of power in tech.
In this show, they look back at what 2025 has really changed for quantum. Access to technologies, the emergence of the first targeted scientific signals, the rise of financing and consolidation issues, but also questions of security, sovereignty and long-term. An overview intended for those who wish to understand where quantum is, and especially how it is beginning to fit into the reality of businesses and industrial policies.
A year 2025 dedicated to access
For Fanny Bouton, the year 2025 constitutes above all a moment of structuring. She discusses the launch of OVHcloud’s quantum platform, designed to reduce barriers to entry and provide a consistent path for R&D teams. The objective is not to sell a distant promise, but to enable a gradual increase in skills, from emulation to access to real quantum machines.
The logic is that of a continuous value chain, to test algorithms, understand their limits, experiment at low cost, then, when it becomes relevant, switch to more advanced hardware resources. “A customer can now really start that day, their journey from R&D to creating products,” she sums up. The challenge is as much technical as organizational, it is about giving companies a stable framework to explore, without tying up heavy investments or exposing their environments.
Real scientific advances, but still targeted
Olivier Ezratty places 2025 as a year marked by a proliferation of scientific publications showing the beginnings of a quantum advantage, with essential precision. These results mainly concern the simulation of quantum systems, a field where the quantum computer is naturally relevant, but which remains far from most classical industrial applications.
Asked what would have been truly innovative in 2025, he adopted, as usual, a deliberately offbeat position. “There is no innovation,” he says, before clarifying his point. Quantum progresses by accumulation, by successive bricks, in an ecosystem where academic research, startups and large industrialists are still working on incomplete architectures. “We have the bricks, we don’t yet have the castle. »
This reading puts the spectacular announcements into perspective, and underlines that the heart of the work today concerns complex and less visible subjects, such as error correction, fault tolerance or the assembly of hardware and software chains capable of scaling up.
Record funding and start of consolidation
The most structuring tipping point, according to Olivier Ezratty, is economic. The year 2025 marks an unprecedented level of financing for quantum startups and, above all, the start of a consolidation movement. Highly capitalized players are starting to buy out, aggregate skills, and structure complete technology portfolios.
In this context, the comparison between Europe and the United States is not technological, but financial and industrial. Europe has solid players, often very efficient scientifically, but still fragmented and undersized compared to American companies capable of investing massively and absorbing their competitors.
The risk identified is to see the industry consolidate even before technological maturity is fully reached, to the detriment of European players lacking the means to remain independent.
Companies still cautious, but increasingly committed
On the business side, Fanny Bouton observes a significant evolution in perceptions. Interest is growing, driven both by the ripple effect around AI and by a better understanding of potential use cases. R&D teams are formed, roadmaps appear, often around algorithmic experimentation and simulation.
Emulation plays a central role here, as an intermediate step between theory and the machine. Write algorithms, test them, measure gains, then only consider execution on quantum hardware.
Some sectors appear more active than others, with finance and energy regularly coming up in the discussion. Olivier Ezratty also highlights the role of large manufacturers with an advanced R&D culture, capable of working in an ecosystem with startups, laboratories and cloud providers.
Post-quantum as an operational entry point
Another theme of our exchange: post-quantum cryptography. Fanny Bouton sees this as a structuring project for the years to come, well beyond just quantum players. The emergence of standards and recommendations encourages companies to think now about the resilience of their security systems.
It is not a question of announcing an immediate threat, but of signaling a timetable, future obligations and a need for anticipation. Post-quantum transforms quantum into a subject of IT governance, risk management and compliance, including for organizations that will never use quantum computing itself.
Olivier Ezratty, a reference sum for understanding quantum
This rigorous reading also irrigates the work of Olivier Ezratty, Understanding Quantum Technologieswhich has become over the years a reference in the ecosystem. Started in 2018 from in-depth popularization work, the book has transformed into a sum, nourished by several thousand scientific, industrial and institutional references.
Understanding Quantum Technologies can be read at several levels, ranging from historical and geopolitical popularization to detailed analyzes of hardware, software and algorithmic architectures, intended for engineers and researchers.
Sovereignty, public order and long term
The end of the exchange broadens the focus, on the subject of sovereignty, Olivier Ezratty offers a pragmatic definition, based first on the capacity for access, then on the capacity for production. He discusses the role of public procurement, European and national programs, and the need to implement these strategies over the long term.
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