> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.therecursive.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # CEE Is Building Quantum Hardware. Q2B Copenhagen Is Where It Gets a Seat at the Table - URL: https://www.therecursive.com/cee-is-building-quantum-hardware-q2b-copenhagen-is-where-it-gets-a-seat-at-the-table-2/ - Published: 2026-08-18T07:17:26.000Z - Updated: 2026-08-18T07:17:26.000Z - Description: Romania, Poland, and Czechia now have quantum computers running or incoming. As Q2B, the industry's benchmark quantum event, heads to the Nordics for the first time, CEE has more to bring to the table than the global conversation gives it credit for. - Author: Manuella Borges - Tags: Events, quantum, CEE Central and Eastern Europe doesn't usually get mentioned in the same breath as the quantum computing race. Germany, France, and the usual western hubs dominate that conversation. But **the hardware tells a different story.** In October, **IBM** **will** [**physically install**](https://www.romania-insider.com/iasi-based-freeya-mind-campus-bring-ibm-quantum-computer-romania?ref=therecursive.com) **a Quantum System Two at the FreeYa Mind Campus in Iași, Romania**, the first private quantum computer in CEE, backed by an investment north of €100 million. Poland has had one running since June 2025: [PIAST-Q](https://www.eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/inauguration-piast-q-leap-european-quantum-computing-2025-06-23%5Fen?ref=therecursive.com), a 20-qubit trapped-ion machine built by Innsbruck-based AQT and hosted at the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center, the first of eight quantum systems EuroHPC is rolling out across the continent. Czechia followed in September 2025 with its [own EuroHPC machine, VLQ, in Ostrava](https://www.eurohpc-ju.europa.eu/vlq-europes-next-leap-towards-quantum-powered-research-and-innovation-2025-09-23%5Fen?ref=therecursive.com). **That's three CEE countries with sovereign or EU-backed quantum infrastructure** in production within an 18-month window. What the region hasn't had is a natural venue to connect that hardware build-out to the capital, corporates, and commercial partnerships that turn infrastructure into an industry. [**Q2B Copenhagen**](https://q2b.qcware.com/conference/2026-copenhagen?ref=therecursive.com)**, running September 9-10, may be that venue**. It's the first time the conference series, organized by QC Ware and the benchmark event for quantum practitioners globally, has been held in the Nordics. We sat down with QC Ware CEO [Matt Johnson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-johnson-71a1761/?ref=therecursive.com) ahead of the event to talk about where the quantum industry actually stands, where the real commercial value is likely to land first, and why he thinks this edition could be the largest quantum business event ever held in continental Europe. ## The gap between the hype and what's real Johnson doesn't dress up where the industry currently stands. "*No enterprise is running production problems on quantum hardware today*," he told us. **The core issue is economic, not just technical**: for a quantum computer to make sense for a business, it has to solve a problem faster or more efficiently than the company could on classical hardware, including an NVIDIA GPU. > "There are over 90 quantum hardware companies racing to be first to provide enterprises with something useful, and none of them have actually produced a machine with production value yet." What's happening instead is **research-stage experimentation**: enterprises running small versions of production problems to build familiarity and figure out how quantum fits into their workflows. The upside, in Johnson's telling, is that **the gap is closing fast**, and the driver is competitive pressure among hardware vendors racing for capital and credibility. "*If they say they're going to have 100 logical qubits by a certain point, a competitor says, well, we might get to 200*," he said. > "We've seen more advances in the past 12 to 18 months than in the previous five years." ## Where the commercial value actually lands first Ask Johnson where real value shows up first, and **cryptography** comes up, but he's quick to frame it as a sideshow. **Shor's algorithm** has been proven to crack encryption efficiently once machines scale, which matters to the security and crypto-asset communities, but it isn't where enterprise value concentrates. That's in chemistry and materials: **drug** **discovery, new catalysts, anything with a molecule or a crystal structure at its core**. "*Those industries will be the first to see true value*," Johnson said. **Finance** follows, particularly quantitative work like derivatives pricing and portfolio hedging, and further out, **supply chain and manufacturing optimization.** He points to a broad, unglamorous body of work rather than a single flagship case study: IBM, hardware vendors, national labs, universities, and startups all modeling physical systems, building the incremental evidence that gets the industry closer to commercial relevance. It's slower and less headline-friendly than a breakthrough announcement, but it's the actual substance behind the acceleration he's describing. ## Why CEE's hardware build-out matters for the conversation Johnson's read on Europe's institutional advantage is relevant well beyond Denmark, the host country and, alongside its Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings, and 55 North, co-host and Platinum Sponsor of this year's conference. "*European states tend to be more concentrated, not as spread out, and that lends itself to industry and government collaboration more readily*," he said, pointing to Denmark's coordinated program across government, industry, and academia as an exemplar. He was clear this isn't unique to one country: **most EU member states are pursuing a version of the same thing**, with governments directly backing national champions at the hardware level. Romania's Iași investment, Poland's PIAST-Q, and Czechia's VLQ all fit that pattern. > That's the opening for CEE. **The region has the infrastructure and the government-backed sovereignty push** Johnson describes as a European strength. What it's missing is **talent at scale**. A 2024 workforce analysis by the European Physical Society put the [number of people in the EU with advanced quantum computing expertise](https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/europe-quantum-computing-market?ref=therecursive.com) at under 3,500, against projected **industry demand of more than 20,000 specialists by 2030**. Closing that gap will take exactly the kind of **connective tissue Q2B is designed to provide**: a room with hardware vendors, software developers, venture capital, academic researchers, and government agencies together, rather than dispersed across separate national conversations. ## What's actually on the agenda The conference opens with a panel of ambassadors on international cooperation in quantum, moderated by **Louise Lund Henneberg**, Acting Director of the Department for Techplomacy at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From there, it runs **through keynotes, business seminars, and technical workshops** covering optimization, chemistry simulation, pharmaceutical and materials discovery, error correction, and machine learning, with speakers including Microsoft Quantum's **Lauri Sainiemi** and **Dr. Nathan Baker**, **NQCP** and Quantum Foundry Copenhagen CEO **Peter Krogstrup**, and Novo Nordisk Foundation CSO **Lene Oddershede**. Day two includes a **venture capital panel** hosted by Needham & Company's Steven Camp with investors including **55 North, Deep33, Quantonation, Firgun Ventures, and Qbeat Ventures**, alongside a startup pitch competition organized by BioInnovation Institute and industry sessions from **AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Merck, and NTT Data Group**, among others. None of the listed VC panelists are CEE-dedicated funds, so the region's pitch here is less about a direct funding line and more about visibility: a chance for CEE-based teams to get in front of global quantum capital that isn't otherwise looking east. For anyone attending for the first time and still deciding whether quantum deserves their attention yet, **Johnson's advice is to treat it as a fast, dense way to meet the entire ecosystem at once**, rather than to look for a single killer use case. "*The whole purpose is to help amplify application discovery*," he said. > "*You get the hardware vendors and their supply chain, the software developers, the VC community, the academic researchers, and the government agencies all in one place. You'd otherwise need months to meet that many relevant people*." ## What comes next Johnson expects the next 24 months to bring utility-scale quantum computers online, and **describes the current moment as a hundred world-class sprinters lined up at the start of a race that's already begun.** His stated ambition for this edition, sponsorship and participation considered, is for it to be the largest quantum industry event held anywhere in continental Europe. Whether or not it clears that bar, it's the first time this specific conversation, hardware vendors, capital, corporates, and government, is happening in a room CEE companies and researchers can walk into without having to fly to Silicon Valley or Munich first. For a region that now has real infrastructure to point to, that's the opening worth showing up for. [**Q2B Copenhagen*](https://q2b.qcware.com/conference/2026-copenhagen?ref=therecursive.com) *runs September 9-10, 2026, in Copenhagen, Denmark.* **Register with code* ****TR-20-CP** *for 20% off.* [Get tickets ](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/q2b26-copenhagen-the-roadmap-to-quantum-value-tickets-1988090729891?aff=oddtdtcreator&ref=therecursive.com)