The British OQC will invest 92 million in a quantum computing center in Barcelona

Barcelona scores a new victory in the European technology ecosystem. The British company Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC), one of the regional benchmarks in quantum computing, will establish its new manufacturing and innovation center for this technology in the city. The project will represent a total investment of 92 million euros, and will be the most important quantum facility in Southern Europe. This is OQC's first location in continental Europe and, once operational, it will create approximately 210 highly qualified jobs.

The executive director of the technology company, Gerald Mullally, celebrated the agreement as a "definitive step" for the company in the European industrial ecosystem. According to the executive, "Barcelona was the right place" to make a commitment of this magnitude. The Barcelona plant, which will concentrate both research and development activities and the manufacturing of the company's quantum computers, will assemble the "next generation of European quantum computing," according to Mullally.

The center, named OQC Global Quantum Development & Manufacturing Center, will be operational in the second half of 2027. OQC, it should be recalled, already has a production and research center in the United Kingdom of a similar size to the one it will have in Barcelona, and which will continue to grow in parallel. The Catalan facility will be, according to Mullaly, a "critically important" installation.

The talent of Barcelona

According to Mullally, OQC had a series of proposals on the table to set up its factory. It considered, he recalls, cities on the level of Copenhagen, Paris and Munich, as well as various Spanish locations. However, the company has opted for Barcelona, mainly due to the quality of local talent. In the country's capital, he explained, there is "a lot of talent" in the quantum industry, a sector in which companies still find it very difficult to find high-level specialists.

"Barcelona has offered us extraordinary talent, research strength, and the desire to turn ambition into execution," he declared. The technology company, it should be recalled, closed a Series C investment round of 300 million euros at the beginning of June, the largest in Europe's history for a company dedicated to quantum computing. Part of the capital raised was contributed by the public company Cofides with about 40 million euros.

The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, participated in the presentation of the initiative, offering the company the "complete cooperation" of the Government to guarantee the success of the new center. "Today we send a message in favor of science, innovation, and research," stated the head of the executive. For her part, the president of Cofides, Ángela Pérez, thanked OQC for its choice; and assured that the new investment "positions Spain, Barcelona, and Catalonia as relevant players in the global quantum computing ecosystem".