The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), PlanQK’s sponsor, is expanding its support for PlanQK as part of the economic stimulus and future package to enable additional use cases.
To address the Corona crisis, the German government has developed an economic stimulus and future package that includes two billion euros to support quantum technologies and quantum computing. This budget is distributed across several agencies, of which the BMWi is responsible for 878 million euros. In its press release, the ministry highlights further funding of projects, interacting with PlanQK: „50 million euros will be added to the already ongoing funding measure PlanQK – Platform and Ecosystem for Quantum-Based Artificial Intelligence. The funds will be used to open up further application potentials of quantum computing in industry and to create easy access to expertise and algorithms, especially for SMEs.“
The PlanQK consortium is excited about this additional funding for the application of quantum computing in Germany. Prof. Dr. Frank Leymann, Scientific Director of PlanQK, and Andreas Liebing, PlanQK Consortium Leader, agree: „The idea of PlanQK was to create an open ecosystem where further activities can be established. We are happy to have achieved this first step and, in addition to our own developments, look forward to collaborating with exciting other players and use cases.“
The complete press release of the BMWi can be found here: https://www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/DE/Pressemitteilungen/2021/05/20210511-BMWi-foerdert-Quantentechnologien-mit-878-Millionen-Euro.html