8 July 2026

^{The Q-Neko consortium at the kick-off meeting in Helsinki. Copyright: Mikael Kanerva}

 

The European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking launched Q-Neko on 6 July 2026, a three-year EU-Japan project designed to advance hybrid high-performance computing and quantum computing systems. Funded through Horizon Europe and Japan’s Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program, the project brings together European and Japanese partners to work on software, benchmarks, standards and applications for fields including materials science, telecommunications, fluid dynamics, satellite image analysis and carbon dioxide reduction.

On paper, Q-Neko is a quantum computing project. In practice, it is also the latest example of a deliberate political and strategic alignment between Europe and Japan around deep technology.

That alignment is not an organic commercial trend driven only by companies or universities. It is being built at institutional level through the EU-Japan Digital Partnership, research programmes, cyber dialogues, advanced materials cooperation, semiconductor workshops and scientific networks. The shared vocabulary is increasingly clear: economic security, technological sovereignty, supply chain resilience and geopolitical de-risking.

For both Europe and Japan, deep technology is no longer simply a matter of innovation policy. It now sits inside foreign policy, industrial strategy and security planning.

 

Quantum is the latest signal

 

Q-Neko, short for Nippon-Europe Quantum Koraborēshon, aims to establish a common ecosystem for quantum-accelerated high-performance computing. High-performance computing, or HPC, refers to large-scale computing systems used for complex scientific and industrial workloads. Quantum computing, still at an early stage of maturity, uses quantum-mechanical effects to process certain kinds of problems differently from conventional computers.

The project does not treat quantum computers as isolated machines waiting for a single breakthrough. Instead, it focuses on hybrid environments in which quantum systems are connected to existing supercomputing infrastructure.

That is significant because Europe is already investing heavily in supercomputing through EuroHPC. The joint undertaking has procured 12 supercomputers across Europe, including JUPITER and Alice Recoque, described by EuroHPC as Europe’s first exascale systems. It is also deploying European quantum computing infrastructure and, in June 2026, launched a quantum pilot access mode for testing and development.

Q-Neko connects that European infrastructure with emerging quantum hardware and simulators in Europe and Japan, including Japan’s ABCI-Q system. The work is technical, but the political setting is broader. EuroHPC says the project supports implementation of the EU-Japan Digital Partnership.

That partnership, launched in 2022, has become one of the main frameworks through which Brussels and Tokyo organise cooperation on strategic digital technologies.

 

A top-level strategic choice

 

The EU and Japan have made closer technology ties a government-level project.

In May 2026, the European Commission said the two sides were accelerating cooperation on artificial intelligence, data, quantum technologies, semiconductors, digital identity and platform regulation. The same announcement placed the work within the EU-Japan Digital Partnership and wider efforts to strengthen trusted digital cooperation.

Two years earlier, in April 2024, the EU and Japan launched an Enhanced Dialogue on Advanced Materials. The focus was not only scientific discovery. It included the development of new materials for critical sectors of the economy, including clean energy, electronics, construction and mobility.

These are not peripheral topics. Advanced materials are central to batteries, power electronics, wind turbines, semiconductors and industrial hardware. For both regions, they also touch a shared vulnerability. Neither Europe nor Japan has the mineral endowment of major resource exporters. Both depend on complex supply chains for critical materials.

The advanced materials dialogue therefore fits neatly into a policy environment shaped by de-risking. Instead of relying only on mining or stockpiling, Europe and Japan are investing in substitution, materials science and industrial application.

The same logic appears in cybersecurity and digital infrastructure. During the second EU-Japan Digital Week in Tokyo in March 2026, organised by INPACE and the EU delegation in Japan, discussions moved beyond policy dialogue towards implementation. The event focused on interoperability, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and digital governance.

One session on digital public infrastructure concluded that interoperability between European and Indo-Pacific systems was no longer mainly a research question. The barriers were described as certification frameworks, trust registries and sustained coordination. Another session examined how European and Japanese standards bodies could support the Digital Partnership in areas including 6G, quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and data governance.

This is where the strategy becomes visible. The EU and Japan are not only funding research. They are working on the rules, interfaces, standards and certification systems that determine whether technologies can be deployed across borders.

 

Hardware bottlenecks, not just software

 

The Europe-Japan axis is particularly visible around the physical layers of technology.

In semiconductors, the United States and China have poured vast sums into domestic capacity. Europe and Japan face a different reality. Neither can easily cover the entire semiconductor value chain alone. Both have strengths, but those strengths are distributed across specialised segments.

The EU-Japan Digital Week semiconductor workshop described clear complementarities. Japan’s strengths in memory, materials, back-end equipment and integration were identified as areas of interest to Europe. The same discussion pointed to the potential for joint projects under Horizon Europe and the Chips Joint Undertaking.

That is where the partnership becomes more interesting than a conventional technology agreement.

Europe brings institutions such as IMEC, CEA-Leti and Fraunhofer, as well as advanced semiconductor equipment capabilities in the Netherlands and Germany. Japan brings deep expertise in materials, precision equipment, memory technologies and manufacturing processes. The overlap is especially relevant as the industry moves beyond traditional silicon scaling towards advanced packaging, heterogeneous integration and chiplets, where multiple specialised components are combined into higher-performance systems.

For Europe, these are hardware bottlenecks that matter to artificial intelligence, defence, automotive systems, energy infrastructure and industrial automation. For Japan, cooperation with Europe offers access to research networks, regulatory influence and large-scale public programmes in areas where Japan is also trying to maintain technological relevance.

 

Why Japan looks attractive to Europe

 

Japan occupies an unusual position in the global technology landscape.

It is an advanced industrial democracy with deep capabilities in semiconductors, robotics, photonics, materials science, precision manufacturing and industrial automation. It is politically aligned with Europe, but it is not one of the dominant hyperscaler powers shaping the global cloud and consumer AI markets.

That makes Japan a useful partner for Europe in areas where sovereignty depends less on apps and platforms and more on components, materials, machinery and production know-how.

The EU’s search for technology sovereignty has often been discussed as a European project. Yet the practical challenges are too large for isolation. Artificial intelligence requires chips, energy, cooling, cloud infrastructure, data governance and trusted networks. Quantum computing requires hardware, software, standards, measurement and industrial use cases. Clean technology requires materials, power electronics and manufacturing capacity.

Japan has capabilities in many of the physical systems that underpin those ambitions.

 

Why Europe looks attractive to Japan

 

The relationship is not one-sided.

Europe offers Japan a large democratic market, major public research programmes, regulatory influence and a dense network of specialised technology clusters. Brussels also has increasing power to shape global technology requirements through legislation and standards.

For Japanese companies and research institutions, European cooperation offers access to Horizon Europe, EuroHPC, the Chips Joint Undertaking and other programmes that bring together universities, public research organisations, start-ups and industrial companies across multiple countries.

Europe also remains a major centre of fundamental science. In areas such as quantum technologies, photonics, advanced materials, semiconductor research and high-performance computing, European institutions provide research depth that complements Japan’s strengths in engineering and industrialisation.

The EU-Japan Network for Digital Foundations, involving partners including the University of Tsukuba and Université Grenoble Alpes, reflects this logic. The network focuses on strategic digital science and technology, including artificial intelligence, next-generation semiconductors and quantum technologies. Its purpose is not simply academic exchange. It is part of a wider attempt to connect scientific research to strategic technology development.

For Japan, closer EU ties also serve a geopolitical function. Japan faces its own economic security pressures, including exposure to fragile supply chains, reliance on imported critical materials and the need to balance technological relationships with the United States, China and the wider Indo-Pacific. Europe offers a partner with similar concerns, but a different industrial base.

 

Trusted corridors for strategic technology

 

The emerging EU-Japan model is not a traditional free-trade story. Nor is it only a research story.

It is the construction of trusted technology corridors between two advanced industrial economies that are trying to reduce strategic dependencies without cutting themselves off from international cooperation.

That explains why the partnerships appear across different domains but follow a similar pattern.

In quantum computing, Q-Neko links research, infrastructure, standards and application development. In advanced materials, the EU and Japan are working on substitutes and new materials for critical sectors. In semiconductors, cooperation is forming around complementary strengths in materials, back-end processes, integration and research. In cybersecurity, discussions focus on interoperability, certification and trusted industrial systems. In digital identity and data governance, the work is moving towards the technical plumbing required for secure cross-border exchange.

The technologies differ, but the institutional logic is consistent.

Both sides are responding to a world in which economic competitiveness, supply chain resilience and security have become harder to separate. Neither Europe nor Japan can build every strategic technology stack alone. Both are trying to avoid excessive dependence on single suppliers, single markets or single geopolitical blocs.

Q-Neko is therefore more than a quantum computing announcement. It is one entry in a growing sequence of EU-Japan initiatives that place deep technology inside economic security policy.

The next phase of technological sovereignty may not be defined by self-sufficiency. It may be shaped by the partners countries choose when the technologies are difficult to build, expensive to scale and too strategically important to leave entirely to the market.

 

 

 

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