Quobly wants to bring semiconductor-scale manufacturing to quantum computing
In an exclusive interview with MoveTheNeedle.news, Quobly chief executive and co-founder Maud Vinet outlined how the French company plans to move quantum processors from laboratory demonstrations to industrial-scale manufacturing.
Founded in Grenoble in 2022, Quobly is developing silicon-based quantum chips using established semiconductor manufacturing processes and has set itself the ambitious goal of building a fault-tolerant quantum computer with one million qubits by 2032. Recent collaborations with TNO, STMicroelectronics and OVHcloud, alongside an expansion into Canada's growing quantum ecosystem, underline the company's focus on turning quantum technologies into deployable computing infrastructure.
That ambition has increasingly placed Quobly among a growing group of companies seeking to solve one of the industry's biggest challenges: not simply proving that qubits work, but finding ways to manufacture and operate them at scale.
From quantum research programme to industrial roadmap
Quobly emerged from more than 15 years of collaborative research between French institutions CEA-Leti and CNRS. The company was co-founded by Vinet and quantum engineer Tristan Meunier, bringing together expertise in semiconductor manufacturing and quantum physics. Vinet spent more than two decades at CEA-Leti and holds more than 70 patents in nanotechnology. In 2019, she was appointed to the French Legion of Honour for her contributions to science and innovation.
The company attracted significant attention early. In 2023 it raised €19 million in seed funding, reportedly one of the largest seed rounds secured by a European quantum startup at the time.
Since then, Quobly has focused on developing silicon spin qubits, a type of quantum bit built using fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FD-SOI) technology already used extensively throughout the semiconductor industry.
So unlike many quantum companies that rely on entirely new manufacturing approaches, Quobly's strategy is based on adapting infrastructure that already exists.
"Industrializing quantum computing means moving away from handcrafted laboratory systems toward technologies that can actually be manufactured, deployed and maintained at scale," Vinet told MoveTheNeedle.news. "In practice, this means relying on semiconductor manufacturing standards, 300 mm wafer processes, process control, reproducibility and yield optimization."
Those disciplines are familiar territory for chipmakers but far less common in a field where many systems remain highly specialised research platforms.
Why Quobly is betting on silicon spin qubits
Quantum computing has become a crowded field. Much of the industry's attention remains focused on superconducting processors developed by companies such as IBM and Google, alongside trapped-ion and photonic architectures.
But Quobly is not alone in pursuing silicon spin qubits. Companies including Australia's Diraq and research groups across Europe, North America and Asia are exploring similar approaches.
"Silicon has already solved many of the scaling problems that quantum computing will eventually face," Vinet explained. "Our approach leverages existing semiconductor infrastructure rather than rebuilding an entirely new industrial stack from scratch."
The argument is straightforward. The semiconductor industry spent decades learning how to manufacture billions of transistors with extraordinary precision and repeatability. Quobly believes future quantum processors will ultimately require a similar level of manufacturing discipline.
Silicon spin qubits also offer another potential advantage. They are physically compact, an increasingly important characteristic as systems grow larger. Scaling is not only about adding more qubits. It also involves interconnects, control electronics, cooling systems, power consumption and manufacturability.
The question is no longer whether quantum computers can be built, but which technology can ultimately be scaled into practical computing systems.
Building a global quantum computing ecosystem
That emphasis on scalability helps explain several of Quobly's recent partnerships and expansion plans.
In January, the company established a Canadian subsidiary in Sherbrooke, Quebec, one of North America's leading centres for quantum research and cryogenic engineering. According to Quobly, the move forms part of its broader strategy to industrialise silicon-based quantum computing by connecting complementary ecosystems across different regions.
The expansion gives the company access to expertise in cryogenic infrastructure and quantum systems integration while strengthening its North American presence.
"As quantum systems scale, cryogenics and advanced packaging become major bottlenecks," Vinet explained.
More broadly, Vinet sees quantum technologies developing within an increasingly international industrial ecosystem: "Europe has major strengths in semiconductors and quantum research, North America has strong HPC and commercialization ecosystems, and Asia is critical in advanced manufacturing and packaging."
She added: "Our international footprint reflects the fact that building scalable quantum computing will require collaboration across all these ecosystems."
Connecting quantum computing with semiconductor manufacturing
That same thinking lies behind Quobly's partnership with STMicroelectronics.
Announced in 2024, the collaboration aims to adapt STMicroelectronics' commercial 28-nanometre FD-SOI manufacturing process for quantum processors, allowing future chips to be produced using the same industrial environment that manufactures conventional semiconductor devices.
For Quobly, compatibility with existing manufacturing infrastructure is not a secondary consideration but a central design principle.
"Quantum computing will not scale if every processor requires a fully bespoke manufacturing flow," Vinet said.
The long-term objective extends beyond fabrication. The company wants future processors to integrate into existing high-performance computing (HPC) and datacentre environments rather than remain isolated scientific instruments.
That ambition also explains Quobly's relationship with OVHcloud. The partnership is intended to help integrate future quantum processors into cloud and HPC environments, allowing quantum resources to be accessed through existing computing infrastructure rather than standalone systems.
This is where semiconductor engineering increasingly intersects with quantum engineering.
Earlier this year, Quobly announced another collaboration, this time with Dutch applied research organisation TNO, focused on silicon spin qubits and scalable architectures. The partnership addresses issues that rarely attract headlines but may ultimately determine whether large-scale quantum systems become practical.
According to Vinet, increasing qubit counts creates new bottlenecks around wiring density, heat dissipation and signal integrity.
"Managing these bottlenecks becomes as important as qubit physics itself," she said.
The challenge is relatively easy to understand. If every additional qubit requires dedicated wiring and control hardware, systems eventually become too complex to build and operate efficiently. Solving that problem requires closer integration between quantum devices and conventional electronics.
"This is exactly where semiconductor engineering and quantum engineering begin to converge," said Vinet.
Quobly's path to a one-million-qubit quantum computer
Quobly's stated goal of reaching one million qubits by 2032 inevitably attracts attention. It also highlights how much work remains across the entire sector.
"The challenge is no longer only proving that qubits work, it's whether quantum systems can scale as engineered systems," Vinet said.
She identifies several obstacles: error correction, cryogenic infrastructure, packaging density, manufacturability and the integration of control electronics.
Because qubits are inherently fragile, large numbers of physical qubits are typically required to create a smaller number of reliable logical qubits capable of performing useful computations.
The result is that building practical systems often requires considerably more hardware than headline qubit counts suggest.
"There is a software and architecture challenge," Vinet noted. "Fault-tolerant quantum computing requires hardware, error correction and algorithms to be optimized together."
That observation reflects a growing recognition throughout the industry that progress will depend on advances across hardware, software and systems engineering occurring simultaneously.
Manufacturing may decide the winners
For decades, the semiconductor industry solved problems of scale by making devices smaller, cheaper and more reproducible. Quobly believes quantum computing will ultimately require the same industrial discipline if it is to move beyond specialist research systems and become practical computing infrastructure.
Whether the industry reaches million-qubit systems by the early 2030s remains uncertain. What is becoming increasingly clear, however, is that the next phase of quantum computing will depend on far more than advances in physics alone. As companies pursue different technical architectures, the ability to manufacture quantum processors reliably, repeatedly and at industrial scale may prove just as important as the performance of the qubits themselves.
Further reading on MoveTheNeedle.news:
IQM’s Halocene quantum computer points to a future beyond noisy qubits
Multiverse: How a Spanish startup is using quantum ideas to make AI cheaper and greener