Celebrating World Quantum Day at the launch of Quantum Ireland!
Representatives of the IrelandQCI consortium of partners were delighted to attend the exciting launch of Quantum Ireland, held at the innovative Trinity Business School at Trinity College Dublin, held fittingly on World Quantum Day, 14th April 2025. The launch brought together almost 200 attendees from across academia, enterprise, and government.
The day highlighted the collaborative spirit at the heart of Ireland’s quantum journey—with passionate contributions from across the sector, aligning with the Quantum 2030 national strategy.
In his welcome address, speaker Dr Michael Dascal of Fidelity Investments explained that April 14th was chosen as World Quantum Day for 4.14 (ħ ≈ 4.14×10⁻¹⁵ eV·s), honouring Planck’s constant—a key foundation of quantum mechanics. The day internationally marks a celebration of quantum science and its impact on technology, computing and the future.
It was terrific to hear from Peter Burke TD, Minister for Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, who shared his perspective on Ireland’s ambition in the quantum space.
IrelandQCI consortium partner Dan Kilper Director at CONNECT Centre chaired a panel discussion on the topic ‘Applications of Quantum Technology’; IrelandQCI partner Venkatesh Kannan Associate Director Irish Centre for High-End Computing ICHEC spoke on a panel about ‘Education and Opportunities in Quantum’; and IrelandQCI Project Lead and Director of Research at Walton Institute at South East Technological University Dr Deirdre Kilbane delivered an update on the progress of building a national quantum communication network across Ireland, as part of the EuroQCI initiative.
Numerous other fascinating talks were delivered by representatives of Dogpatch Labs Equal1 Citi APC Irish Centre for High-End Computing ICHEC IDA Ireland and more.
The launch of Quantum Ireland demonstrates the appetite right now within the tight-knit ecosystem of the quantum community in Ireland, to accelerate our collective expertise, for world-wide recognition. A telling theme of the day was “Quantum Horizons: Unlocking the Future of Innovation and Opportunity”, which created an energetic buzz amongst the stakeholders in the room representing academia, industry and government.
It’s certainly a very exciting time for quantum for Ireland, and globally. Watch this tech and innovation space! With thanks to Technology Ireland and ICT Skillnet.
IrelandQCI
IrelandQCI ‘Building a National Quantum Communication Infrastructure for Ireland’ incorporates integrating innovative and secure quantum devices and systems into conventional communication infrastructure. The project aim is establishing an infrastructure for Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), a method of communication based on sharing encryption keys using quantum physics in a manner that boosts security, which will be distributed over the existing classical network, creating a quantum communication network that will provide a huge increase to information security in Ireland.
Funding bodies
Co-funded by the European Commission, European Space Agency and the Irish Government’s Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications, IrelandQCI is the €10 million Irish project within the EU-wide Quantum Communications Infrastructure (EuroQCI) programme.
IrelandQCI is one of several across the EU which sees the European Commission working with 27 Member States towards the deployment of a secure quantum communication infrastructure spanning the EU. This project has received funding from the European Union’s DIGITAL Europe Programme under grant agreement No. 101091520.
Consortium partners
Waterford’s Walton Institute, at South East Technological University (SETU), is leading the IrelandQCI project on behalf of CONNECT Research Ireland Centre for Future Networks and Communications, with partners specialising in quantum technologies at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and University College Cork (UCC)’s Tyndall National Institute, with support from University College Dublin (UCD) and Maynooth University (MU) and the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC) at University of Galway. HEAnet and ESB Telecoms are also key partners in the project, as the quantum communications network is being built across the dark fibre optic network of ESB Telecoms parallel to the existing HEAnet backbone between Dublin, Waterford and Cork.