--- eventsindex_id: "EI-07113" slug: commercialising-quantum-global-2026 title: "Commercialising Quantum Global 2026" title_alt: ["5th Annual Commercialising Quantum Global 2026", "Commercialising Quantum", "Economist Impact Commercialising Quantum Global"] canonical_url: "https://eventsindex.org/events/commercialising-quantum-global-2026.html" next_edition_year: 2026 date_start: 2026-06-16 date_end: 2026-06-17 venue: "Business Design Centre" city: "London" country: "United Kingdom" organiser: "Economist Impact" organiser_url: "https://events.economistenterprise.com/commercialising-quantum/" b2b: true vector: sector: [quantum-tech] audience: [corporate, industry, investor, government, researcher] format: [conference] purpose: [content, networking, education] geography_scope: [UK] season: summer meta_description: "Commercialising Quantum Global 2026 is Economist Impact's 5th annual quantum commercialisation conference, 16-17 June in London, about 1,100 attendees." editorial_take: "The commercial counterweight to Europe's research-led quantum calendar: a conference built around whether quantum spending returns anything, which is a harder question to answer on stage than whether the physics works." generated_by: "claude-max-cowork" last_verified: "2026-08-18" variables_filled: 19/58 language: "en" schema_version: "v6.0" --- # Commercialising Quantum Global 2026 > *Economist Impact's annual conference on the business case for quantum technology, held on 16 and 17 June 2026 at the Business Design Centre in London. The fifth edition gathered around 1,100 cross-functional leaders from enterprise, finance, government and research around case studies on quantum computing, sensing and communication. Its organising question is commercial rather than scientific: what quantum spending returns, and when.* --- ## Quick Facts | DATES | VENUE | ORGANISER | ATTENDANCE | |---|---|---|---| | **16-17 June 2026** | **Business Design Centre** | **Economist Impact** | **~1,100 attendees (organiser estimate)** | | 2 days, annual, 5th edition | London, United Kingdom | Commercial publisher and events arm | Enterprise, finance, government, research | ## Definition Commercialising Quantum Global is an annual two-day business conference on quantum technology, run by Economist Impact, the events and research arm of The Economist Group. The 2026 edition, its fifth, ran on 16 and 17 June at the Business Design Centre in London and drew around 1,100 attendees according to organiser figures. Its programme is case-study led rather than paper led: sessions cover quantum computing, quantum sensing and quantum communication applications, measurable return on investment for enterprise adopters, and quantum security and policy. The audience is deliberately cross-functional, mixing corporate strategy and technology buyers with financial institutions, government representatives and researchers. Economist Impact positions it as the largest quantum-focused event in Europe, a claim that comes from the organiser rather than from independent audit. ## A commercial conference, not a physics meeting The distinguishing feature of Commercialising Quantum Global is what it does not do. It does not centre on hardware milestones, qubit counts or peer-reviewed results, and it is not attached to a public research programme. The framing is procurement-side: which quantum use cases have moved past pilot stage, what they cost, what they returned, and which parts of the promise remain unproven. That makes it useful to a chief technology officer or head of innovation deciding whether to fund a quantum programme next year, and less useful to a researcher looking for technical depth on error correction or photonics. The consequence is a speaker mix weighted toward buyers and regulators rather than laboratories. Adopting organisations describe what they tried; vendors describe what they sold; government sets the rules of the road. Speakers at the 2026 edition included Kanishka Narayan MP, the UK Minister for AI and Online Safety, alongside representatives of Lloyds Banking Group, Schneider Electric, Infleqtion, Moody's, Q-CTRL, Airbus, the OECD and the World Economic Forum. ## Now in its fifth edition The 2026 conference was the fifth annual edition, which puts the event's origin in the early 2020s, the same window in which most national quantum strategies were first funded and in which enterprise quantum pilots began appearing outside research departments. Economist Impact has not published edition-by-edition attendance or exhibitor figures, so year-on-year growth cannot be stated with confidence here. What five consecutive editions do establish is that the commercial question has held a paying audience through a period when the underlying technology has not yet produced broad commercial advantage, which is itself the most interesting thing about the event's survival. ## The 2026 programme: three strands, six recurring themes The published themes group into three distinct strands, and the balance between them is what separates this conference from the research-led events on the European quantum calendar. | Programme strand | Themes covered | |---|---| | Technology and applications | Quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum communication | | Commercial case | Commercialisation pathways, measurable return on investment for enterprise adopters | | Public interest and rules | National security and critical infrastructure, quantum policy and regulation | ## Who speaks: the 2026 platform by category Grouping the named 2026 speakers by the seat they occupy makes the conference's centre of gravity visible. Adopters and regulators outnumber pure-play quantum vendors, which is the reverse of the ratio at most vendor-run quantum conferences. | Category | Represented at the 2026 edition by | |---|---| | Government and policy | Kanishka Narayan MP, UK Minister for AI and Online Safety | | Multilateral bodies | OECD, World Economic Forum | | Financial services | Lloyds Banking Group, Moody's | | Industrial and aerospace adopters | Schneider Electric, Airbus | | Quantum technology vendors | Infleqtion, Q-CTRL | ## Where it sits on the European quantum calendar June in London puts Commercialising Quantum Global at the mid-year point of a circuit that has thickened considerably since 2024. It shares its venue, the Business Design Centre, with the UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase, and shares its city with Qubits Europe, but it differs from both on who runs it and who pays. | Event | City and venue | Run by | Access | Centre of gravity | |---|---|---|---|---| | Commercialising Quantum Global 2026 | London, Business Design Centre | Economist Impact, a commercial publisher | Paid delegate passes, some complimentary categories | Enterprise adoption and return on investment | | EQTC 2026 | Dublin, Convention Centre Dublin | EU Quantum Flagship | Paid, tiered by attendee sector | Research results and European policy | | UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase 2026 | London, Business Design Centre | UK national quantum programme | Free | Output of UK government-funded projects | Read across that table and the split is clean. EQTC is where European funding and research direction is set. The National Quantum Technologies Showcase is where UK publicly funded work is displayed at no cost to the visitor. Commercialising Quantum Global is the paid, commercially run counterpart where the buyer side is the intended audience rather than an invited guest. ## Who attends The organiser targets cross-functional leadership rather than a single job family. In practice that means corporate strategy, innovation and technology executives from sectors with plausible near-term quantum exposure (financial services, aerospace, energy, industrials, pharmaceuticals), risk and security functions concerned with post-quantum cryptography, investors tracking the sector, government and regulatory representatives, and researchers whose work has reached commercial contact. Around 1,100 attendees is the organiser's figure for the 2026 edition. ## FAQ · Identity and audience ### Who actually attends Commercialising Quantum Global? Corporate technology and strategy leaders, financial services and insurance representatives, security and risk functions, investors, government and multilateral officials, and researchers working on applied problems. It is designed for people evaluating quantum as a business decision rather than as a research field. ### How is it different from EQTC? EQTC is the EU Quantum Flagship's own annual conference, held in Dublin in late 2026, and its agenda follows European research programmes and policy. Commercialising Quantum Global is privately run by Economist Impact, sits in London in June, and organises its agenda around adoption cases and return on investment. Many senior figures appear at both, but the questions asked on stage are different. ### Is this a technical conference? No. The programme covers quantum computing, sensing and communication at the level of what they can be used for and what they cost, not at the level of hardware architecture or algorithmic detail. Attendees looking for technical depth are better served by research-led events. ### Is it only for UK organisations? No. The event is held in London and features UK government representation, but the framing is international, with multilateral bodies and multinational corporate speakers on the 2026 platform. ## The venue: Business Design Centre The Business Design Centre is a converted Victorian exhibition hall in Islington, north London, used year-round for conferences and trade shows at the scale of one to a few thousand attendees. It is a short walk from Angel underground station on the Northern line and roughly a mile from the King's Cross St Pancras interchange, which makes it directly reachable from Eurostar arrivals and from most London hotel districts. The same venue hosts the UK National Quantum Technologies Showcase. ## The organiser: Economist Impact Economist Impact is the research, policy and events division of The Economist Group. It runs a portfolio of themed business conferences across technology, sustainability, health and finance, built on the same editorial model as the publication: moderated panels, executive interviews and commissioned research rather than exhibition floor space. That model shapes this event, which is a conference with sponsorship rather than a trade show with a conference attached. --- ## Editorial take *The commercial counterweight to Europe's research-led quantum calendar: a conference built around whether quantum spending returns anything, which is a harder question to answer on stage than whether the physics works.* ## How to register and what it costs Registration for the 2026 edition is closed. The event ran on 16 and 17 June 2026, and Economist Impact typically opens registration for the following edition on the same event page some months ahead, so the official site is the place to watch for 2027 dates and pricing. For reference, a third-party event listing reported delegate pricing for 2026 spanning GBP 0 to GBP 1,499 depending on attendee category. Economist Impact has not published a verified tier-by-tier breakdown, and the most plausible reading of that range is complimentary or heavily discounted passes for government, public sector and academic attendees against paid corporate delegate passes at the upper end. Treat that split as inferred rather than organiser-confirmed. As with other Economist Impact conferences, group rates and early-booking discounts are common but were not confirmed for this edition. ## FAQ · Access and practicalities ### Can I still register for the 2026 edition? No. The 2026 conference has taken place and registration is closed. Details of the next edition are published on the official event page. ### What did it cost to attend in 2026? A third-party listing reported a range of GBP 0 to GBP 1,499 depending on attendee category. The organiser did not publish a verified public breakdown of the tiers, so the exact conditions attached to the free and paid categories are not documented here. ### Are there free passes for government or academic attendees? The reported pricing range starting at zero points that way, and complimentary public sector and academic categories are standard practice at Economist Impact conferences, but this was not confirmed by the organiser for the 2026 edition. ### Is the event in person only? Yes. The 2026 edition was an in-person conference at the Business Design Centre in London, running across two days. ## First time at Commercialising Quantum Global? How to prepare - **Check your eligibility for a discounted category before paying full price.** The reported 2026 range started at zero, which suggests government, public sector and academic attendees may qualify for complimentary or reduced passes. Ask the organiser directly rather than assuming the corporate rate applies to you. - **Come with a specific use case, not a general interest in quantum.** The programme is built around adoption cases and return on investment, so the conversations that pay off are the ones where you can describe a concrete problem in your own operations. - **Decide early whether you also need a research-led event.** If you want technical depth on hardware or algorithms, this conference will not provide it. Pair it with EQTC or a national research showcase rather than expecting one event to cover both. - **Target the adopter speakers, not only the vendors.** The most useful sessions are usually those where a bank, an aerospace manufacturer or an industrial group describes what a pilot actually cost and returned. Identify those names in the agenda first and plan your day around them. - **Budget time for the post-quantum cryptography track.** Security and critical infrastructure sessions attract attendees whose quantum timeline is regulatory rather than optional, and they tend to be the most concrete content on the agenda. - **Book Islington logistics rather than central London ones.** The Business Design Centre is in Islington, near Angel station and about a mile from King's Cross St Pancras, so accommodation and meeting points are easier to arrange around those than around the West End. ## Resources | Resource | URL | |---|---| | Official event page | https://events.economistenterprise.com/commercialising-quantum/ | | Registration | Closed for 2026; next edition via the official event page | | Programme | not disclosed | | LinkedIn | not disclosed | --- **Last verified:** 2026-08-18 **Next review:** 2026-09-17 **Notes:** Attendance figure (~1,100) and the claim of being the largest quantum-focused event in Europe are organiser-declared and not independently audited. Pricing range of GBP 0-1,499 comes from a third-party event listing, not from the organiser; the split between complimentary and paid categories is inferred and flagged as such in the body. Edition-by-edition history beyond "fifth annual edition" is not published by the organiser, so no historical figures are given. The 2026 edition has taken place and registration is closed as of this verification date. **Variables:** 19/58 **Concept definition:** not applicable