French National Quantum Update: August 2026
Executive Summary
France’s quantum sector entered a more public-market-facing phase in August 2026, with Pasqal dominating the headlines through its Nasdaq debut, technical progress and expansion into Saudi Arabia. The developments increasingly placed the neutral-atom quantum computing company at the center of France’s conversations on commercialization.
Pasqal completed its combination with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II after receiving clearance from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and shareholder approval. The company began trading on Nasdaq following a transaction that valued it at about $2 billion before new funding and provided approximately $360 million to expand production, deploy processors and pursue fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Pasqal also reported trapping individual atoms using laser light generated by a photonic integrated circuit. The company said moving qubit controls onto chips could reduce the size and complexity of the optical systems needed to operate larger neutral-atom processors.
International expansion provided another major theme for the month’s quantum news. Pasqal and Saudi investment platform Eleven Ventures agreed to establish a joint venture to deploy and commercialize multiple quantum systems in Saudi Arabia and the wider region. Pasqal also hosted a senior Saudi delegation at its French headquarters and production facility as France and the Kingdom expanded their broader commercial ties in advanced technologies.
Elsewhere, SEALSQ reported a $5 million agreement to integrate its security and chip technologies into Quobly’s silicon quantum computing platform. Alice & Bob joined QuBriC, a €4.6 million European doctoral network that will train 15 researchers in quantum error correction.
Research included a French-Italian demonstration of two quantum key distribution methods operating over shared optical infrastructure. A Quandela-led team also reported that a two-layer photonic architecture could reduce the runtime of quantum simulations, although a representative calculation would still require about 1.35 million physical qubits.
This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the news that affected France’s quantum community in August 2026.
Policy
France’s Quantum Sector Has Reached the Commercialisation Test
France’s recent quantum update shows strong science and widening industrial partnerships, but the decisive measures are now customer access, manufacturability, supply resilience and recurring revenue.
Pasqal Welcomes Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Ministerial Delegation to French Headquarters
Pasqal, a global provider of neutral-atom quantum computers, welcomed a delegation of senior leaders from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the “Kingdom”), led by His Excellency Engineer Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, at its French headquarters and quantum computer production site. The delegation brought together His Excellency Engineer Abdullah Alswaha, Minister of Communications and Information Technology; His Royal Highness Prince Abdulaziz Bin Turki Bin Talal; His Excellency Engineer Haytham AlOhali, Governor of the Communications, Space and Technology Commission (CST); and Saeed AlDobas, Executive Vice President of AI Infrastructure and Cloud at HUMAIN.
Business
France’s Quantum Push Gets a 60% Boost From Pasqal’s Nasdaq Debut
Pasqal began trading after completing a merger with blank-cheque company Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp II in a deal that valued the company at about $2 billion before new funding. The transaction left Pasqal with approximately $360 million in cash to expand production, deploy more quantum processors and pursue fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Pasqal, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, announced what it, to its knowledge, believes to be a world-first: the trapping of individual atoms using laser light generated by a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). Achieved with Aeponyx, Pasqal believes this milestone demonstrates a new scalable approach to qubit control supporting future large-scale FTQC quantum processors.
SEALSQ CEO Letter Flags Surging H1 2026 Revenue and Quantum Security Deal With Quobly
In a CEO letter to shareholders dated August 13, 2026, SEALSQ reported that preliminary unaudited revenue for the first half of 2026 rose to about $11 million from $5 million a year earlier, reflecting roughly 120% year-over-year growth and a strong acceleration in the second quarter. On July 10, SEALSQ signed a $5 million commercial agreement with Quobly to embed its security and ASIC technologies into Quobly’s quantum computing platform, marking the first material revenue conversion from its SEALQuantum Sovereign Vertical Stack investment strategy.
Pasqal Receives SEC Clearance for Proposed SPAC Combination With Bleichroeder
Pasqal Holding SAS, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, announced that its joint registration statement on Form F-4 (the “Registration Statement”) with Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II, filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the proposed business combination between Pasqal and Bleichroeder, has been declared effective by the SEC on August 5, 2026. This milestone represents an important step toward completion of the previously announced business combination between Pasqal and Bleichroeder.
Aramco enhances its global partnership ecosystem through collaboration with French companies
Aramco, one of the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals companies, announced agreements and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a potential combined value of more than $3.7 billion with French companies.
These collaborative efforts are expected to strengthen Aramco’s supply chain ecosystem, enhance operational continuity and efficiency, advance industrial artificial intelligence and digital technologies, and deliver economic value to the Kingdom and France.
Pasqal and Bleichroeder Set August 25 Shareholder Vote on Business Combination
Bleichroeder Acquisition Corp. II (Nasdaq: BBCQ) (“Bleichroeder”) will hold a shareholder vote on August 25, 2026 to consider the proposed business combination with Pasqal Holding SAS (“Pasqal“), a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing. The companies continue to advance toward completion of the previously announced transaction following the SEC’s declaration of effectiveness of the parties’ joint registration statement on Form F-4.
Pasqal and Eleven Ventures Form Joint Venture for Quantum Computing in Saudi Arabia
Pasqal, a global leader in neutral-atom quantum computing, and Eleven Ventures, a Kingdom of Saudi Arabia based investment platform and venture capital firm, announced an agreement to establish a commercial joint venture to deploy, commercialize and scale Pasqal‘s quantum computing systems across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (the “Kingdom”) and the region, with plans to deploy multiple quantum systems in the coming years. The venture is designed to advance the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 ambitions in artificial intelligence and advanced computing, and to position the Kingdom as a regional hub for quantum technology.
Research
Researchers from the University of Padua and its Padua Quantum Technologies Research Center, working with Sorbonne Université, CNRS and Paris-Saclay University in France, have demonstrated the simultaneous operation of two different quantum key distribution methods over the same optical channel. The experiment combined continuous-variable QKD, suited to high-throughput shorter-distance links, with discrete-variable QKD, which performs better over longer and more lossy connections, using wavelength-division multiplexing to keep the systems separate on shared infrastructure. The team tested the approach over optical fiber and a 620-meter urban free-space link in daylight, achieving megabit-per-second secure key rates without measurable interference or added noise from running the two systems together. The results suggest hybrid CV-DV networks could allow metropolitan users and longer-distance quantum communication links to share the same physical infrastructure.
QST, Toshiba clear 10,000-amp ITER coil test in France
Japan’s National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, or QST, and Toshiba have succeeded in a current test of one of the world’s largest superconducting toroidal field coils for the ITER fusion experimental reactor under cryogenic conditions of minus 269 degrees Celsius, the organizations said on August 25.
The test was carried out at the ITER construction site in Saint-Paul-lez-Durance in southern France under conditions intended to simulate actual operation. QST and Toshiba said the result marked significant progress toward the start of ITER operations.
Two Layers, No Swaps: Biplanar SPOQC Architecture Improves Runtime of Fermi-Hubbard Simulation
A Quandela-led team of researchers estimated the resources needed to simulate a complex model of interacting electrons using a quantum computer that divides the calculation across two physical layers. The design reduces unnecessary operations and could simulate an 8-by-8 system in about two hours, although it would require roughly 1.35 million physical qubits. The team found that one method for performing certain quantum rotations could become a major bottleneck as simulations grow larger because the chance of every parallel operation succeeding on the first attempt falls rapidly.
Education and Events
Alice & Bob Joins European Quantum Error Correction Doctoral Network
Alice & Bob, a leader in fault-tolerant quantum computing, is contributing its expertise in cat-qubit error correction to QuBriC, Europe’s first Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network dedicated to quantum error correction (QEC).
QuBriC brings together 16 universities and seven quantum companies across Europe, including ETH Zürich, TU Delft, UCL, INRIA, Riverlane and IQM, to recruit and train 15 doctoral researchers. Backed by €4.6 million in funding over 48 months through Horizon Europe’s MSCA programme, the network will develop a new generation of researchers capable of tackling one of quantum computing’s biggest technical challenges: quantum error correction.