Germany backs QUDORA-led NFQC-1k consortium with €122M to build 1,000-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer

# What happened Competition selected a QUDORA-led consortium to advance NFQC-1k, a five-year, €122 million initiative. The project is scoped to deliver a fault-tolerant trapped-ion quantum computer with at least 1,000 physical qubits and an expected 50 logical qubits. The consortium has been invited to submit a full proposal following positive evaluation of its project outline.

# Why it matters NFQC-1k aims to address a central scaling challenge for trapped-ion systems: the complexity and size of optical laser addressing. QUDORA proposes Near Field Quantum Control (NFQC®), which uses chip-scale microwave radiation to control qubits. That approach is compatible with standard semiconductor manufacturing and is intended to simplify integration, packaging, and mass production of quantum processing units (QPUs).

# Who's involved and what each brings QUDORA Technologies leads the consortium and will act as system integrator, providing the NFQC® hardware platform, processor control, and QPU packaging work. Academic and research partners bring trapped-ion physics, high-precision metrology, laser cooling, and algorithm benchmarking:

• TU Braunschweig
• Leibniz University Hannover (LUH)
• Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB)
• Forschungszentrum Jülich

Industry partners cover microfabrication, pilot-line production, cryogenic packaging, and commercial integration:

• NXP Semiconductors Germany GmbH
• AQT Germany GmbH (Alpine Quantum Technologies)

# Technical goals and verification The NFQC-1k project sets measurable technical targets:

• At least 1,000 physical trapped-ion qubits
• An expected 50 logical qubits
• Logical gate error rates below 0.01%

System performance will be validated with a full Quantum Fourier Transform (QFT) algorithmic benchmark. In parallel, the consortium will create a semiconductor pilot line for high-performance QPU fabrication to enable higher-throughput device production and packaging.

# How this fits national plans NFQC-1k is identified as a milestone under Germany's High-Tech Agenda Deutschland (HTAD). HTAD targets deploying at least two European state-of-the-art fault-tolerant quantum computers by 2030. NFQC-1k's semiconductor-focused approach is intended to help meet the timeline by aligning quantum control with existing chip manufacturing methods.

# Immediate next steps The consortium has been invited to submit a full proposal to the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space. If funded and approved, the five-year program would proceed with concurrent development of the trapped-ion QPU, NFQC hardware integration, and pilot-line establishment for QPU production.

# Bottom line NFQC-1k attempts to combine a trapped-ion qubit platform with a semiconductor-compatible control scheme to reduce scaling friction. The project has concrete performance targets and a broad consortium of research and industry partners, and it sits within Germany's broader plan to field multiple fault-tolerant quantum systems by 2030.