France's Macron announces Ksh.225B for quantum computing, advanced microchips

"I'll say it out loud. We have ​the means to be the winners of this race," ​Macron said while announcing the funding.

On Thursday, President Donald ⁠Trump's administration unveiled plans to take $2 billion in equity stakes across ​nine quantum-computing companies to secure U.S. leadership in the technology that ​is set to become the next frontier after AI.

Technological breakthroughs have deepened investor interest in quantum computing's potential to speed up tasks from drug discovery ​to financial modelling and cryptography.

A "massive" increase in investment has been ​driven by the realisation of the growing economic importance of computing infrastructure, ‌Theau ⁠Peronnin, CEO of Paris-headquartered quantum computing firm Alice & Bob, told Reuters.

Peronnin said public funding of such strategic areas as quantum computing forced companies to deliver and helped "create champions."

The company is among those ​to receive support ​from the ⁠new French funding, and said on Friday it has also won funding from Nvidia's venture capital ​arm NVentures to develop hardware to make quantum ​computing less ⁠error-prone.

The company is participating in France's PROQCIMA programme led by the Ministry of the Armed Forces, which aims to have two French-designed ⁠prototypes ​of universal quantum computers ready for ​industrialisation by 2032.