INTERVIEW
one of the keys to the success of the national program. We are also participating in projects like Quantedu France, a national training program in quantum technologies that brings together all major universities in the country. It’ s truly a collective effort, and I think it’ s very positive to see the entire French scientific community working together on these strategic issues.
How do you organize your time between your different activities? Today, my time is split between three major areas:
• Academic research, which remains my primary activity and something I always want to prioritize.
• Entrepreneurship, with the startup I co-founded, which requires significant involvement.
• Participation in European scientific bodies, where I help define research and innovation strategies in the quantum field.
The challenge is finding the right balance between these three aspects of my work, which isn’ t always easy!
How was Welinq created? From a scientific perspective, the creation of Welinq was based on a complementary set of expertise with Julien Laurat, who is also a co-founder of the company. His team had been developing highly advanced quantum memory technology for several years, and at some point, these memories reached a level of maturity that made industrialization possible. That’ s when Julien and his team approached me to propose a collaboration. My expertise in quantum system engineering and quantum networking protocols perfectly complemented their work on quantum memories. The idea was to combine these skills to bring a real industrial application to life by integrating quantum memories into quantum communication and computing infrastructures. This synergy turned out to be extremely fruitful and led to the creation of Welinq, with the ambition of equipping quantum networks and quantum data centers with real interconnection capabilities, which is fundamental for their scaling.
How did you train yourself in entrepreneurship? After multiple discussions, we realized that this project required a strong entrepreneurial commitment. It was a completely new adventure for us— neither Julien nor I were experts in entrepreneurship. So, together with our CEO, Tom Darras, who was a former PhD student from Julien’ s team, who had joined this venture by then, we took training courses, and received precious support from CNRS Innovation, Sorbonne University, and BPI France, among other institutions. We officially launched Welinq in 2022. We secured significant European funding through the EIC Transition and Accelerator grants, as well as support from BPI and other programs. But beyond public funding, we had to convince private investors. We completed our first fundraising round in 2023, and we are preparing for another one soon. Today, Welinq is growing rapidly, with 28 collaborators and fastdeveloping technology.
Can you describe the technology developed by the company? Our technology enables quantum processors to interconnect with each other. The quantum memories we develop play a central role in this interconnection. They ensure crucial synchronization between different elements within such a quantum data centre involving multiple quantum processors, increasing the efficiency of the operations involved in quantum communications and computing. This same technology is also the foundation for quantum repeaters, which are essential for long-distance quantum communication networks. Thus, Welinq positions itself at the intersection of two strategic fields: interconnecting quantum processors in quantum data centers and enabling long-distance quantum networks using quantum memories as key components.
What is your technological roadmap? We have just launched the commercialization of our first product, which is an industry-grade quantum memory. Our next step is to improve this product, particularly by working on the interfaces between different quantum processor technologies. We have established strategic partnerships with key players in several quantum processor platforms. This will help to further advance in the compatibility in terms, for instance, of bandwidth. Demonstrating multimode capacity for storing multiple qubits simultaneously, but also deploying our technology in long-distance quantum communication links will also be important milestones. The ultimate goal is to enable the emergence of a truly interconnected and operational quantum network.
What are the main objectives of your current research? My primary objective remains to demonstrate a quantum advantage for real-world applications, particularly in quantum networks. This is becoming increasingly challenging as applied protocols themselves become more sophisticated. This also leads me to more fundamental topics, for example regarding the certification of quantum resources in quantum networks. How do we verify the quantum nature of our resources? To do this, we use concepts from quantum non-locality, a fundamental topic that, while possibly not having immediate applications, fascinates me deeply. Moreover, through my involvement with Welinq, I am increasingly interested in distributed quantum computing. The goal is to create large-scale quantum networks, not just for long-distance quantum communication but also to build quantum data centers integrating modular quantum processors allowing for their scale up and ultimately revealing their full potential. This is still a new field, but I find it very stimulating, and I would like to explore this interface between quantum communication and quantum computing. This represents a major scientific and technological challenge, and I hope to make a significant contribution in the coming years.
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