A two-day executive summit at imec's Leuven headquarters on 1 and 2 October 2026, co-hosted by the International Semiconductor Industry Group and imec. It puts quantum computing companies, semiconductor manufacturers, investors, researchers and policymakers in one room to discuss what scaling quantum infrastructure actually requires. The agenda runs from EU funding and network policy through to cryogenics, control electronics and manufacturing readiness, with an investor pitch showcase and facility tours attached.
The Quantum Infra Summit EU, listed by its organiser as the GQIG Quantum Infra Summit EU, is a two-day business-to-business executive summit held at imec's headquarters in Leuven, Belgium, on 1 and 2 October 2026. It is co-hosted by the International Semiconductor Industry Group (ISIG) and imec, and belongs to a young multi-region ISIG summit series whose sibling Silicon Valley edition ran in April 2026. The exact edition count for the European leg is not confirmed by the organiser. The programme pairs policy sessions on European quantum funding and network build-out with hardware sessions on cryogenics, control electronics and manufacturing readiness, plus an investor pitch showcase billed as Quantum Dealflow Live and tours of imec's Leuven facilities.
Most quantum conferences organise themselves around computing modalities: superconducting versus trapped ion versus neutral atom versus silicon spin. This one organises itself around what sits underneath all of them. Cryogenic plant, control electronics, wafer-level manufacturing capacity, network hardware and the public funding that pays for the first generation of it. That framing follows directly from who convenes it: ISIG is a semiconductor industry body, and imec is a nanoelectronics research institute with fabrication capability, not a quantum computing vendor. The question the room is set up to ask is less "whose qubit wins" than "who builds the supply chain that lets any of them scale".
For a company selling into quantum rather than selling quantum, that distinction is the whole point of attending. Components suppliers, materials companies and foundries are not an afterthought in this programme, they are the reason the programme exists.
The published description names four policy and deployment topics running alongside the hardware content. Each corresponds to a live European decision rather than a general theme.
| Policy thread | What is at stake |
|---|---|
| EU Quantum Flagship, second-phase funding | A package of EUR 1.2 billion running through 2030, and how it is allocated across research, industrialisation and infrastructure |
| EuroQCI network build-out | The physical and operational rollout of Europe's quantum communication infrastructure across member states |
| Post-quantum cryptography deployment | Moving PQC from published standards into deployed systems, and the migration timelines that follow |
| Quantum sensing for defence | Sensing and metrology applications in a defence procurement context, an area drawing increased European attention |
Two of these threads are covered elsewhere on the 2026 European calendar from a different angle: the Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference and the Quantum Networks Summit both address PQC and EuroQCI, but from a cryptography and telecommunications standpoint rather than from a manufacturing one. The overlap is in subject matter, not in who is in the room.
The engineering half of the programme covers cryogenics, control electronics and manufacturing readiness. These are the three constraints that turn a laboratory demonstration into something a fab can produce at volume: getting and holding millikelvin temperatures at scale, wiring and controlling thousands of qubits without the control stack becoming the bottleneck, and proving that a device design can be manufactured repeatably on existing semiconductor lines. Holding those sessions inside imec, where the relevant process equipment is on site, is a deliberate choice by the organisers rather than a scheduling convenience.
The organisations signalled on the speaker roster split cleanly into three groups, which is itself a description of the summit's thesis: quantum computing companies, the semiconductor supply base that has to manufacture for them, and the research institutes standing between the two.
| Group | Organisations announced |
|---|---|
| Quantum computing companies | Atom Computing, IBM Research, IQM, Pasqal, Quantum Motion, Rigetti, Alice & Bob |
| Semiconductor manufacturing and supply | Infineon Technologies, Applied Materials, GlobalFoundries |
| Research institutes | imec (host), TNO |
The presence of GlobalFoundries, Applied Materials and Infineon on a quantum agenda is the detail worth noting. Equipment vendors and foundries attend quantum events selectively, and their participation is a reasonable proxy for whether an event is treated as a commercial supply-chain discussion or as a research showcase.
The programme includes an investor pitch showcase called Quantum Dealflow Live, and the pass structure carries a dedicated investor networker tier, which indicates the capital side of the room is a designed feature rather than incidental attendance. The organiser has not published the selection process, application deadline or number of pitch slots for the showcase. Investors comparing European quantum events in 2026 will find a similar investor-facing framing at Tech Tour Quantum & Defence, though that event is built around a curated company selection process rather than around a manufacturing agenda.
Early October places it clear of the November and December cluster on the European quantum calendar, and clear of the spring commercial conferences. Its closest structural comparison is not another quantum conference at all but the semiconductor industry's own executive summits, which is consistent with ISIG's origin. Against the larger European quantum gatherings it is small, single-venue and executive in format: no exhibition floor, no parallel poster sessions, a two-day agenda in one building. Attendees choosing between events should read that as a trade of breadth for access.
Executives from quantum computing companies and from the semiconductor supply chain that serves them, investors active in deep tech hardware, researchers from institutes such as imec and TNO, and policymakers working on European quantum funding and network programmes. The pass tiers, which include tabletop, supplier partner, associate, investor networker and academia, indicate the organiser expects all of those groups.
A business event. Sessions are framed around funding allocation, deployment timelines, supply readiness and dealmaking rather than around new experimental results. Research institutes participate as suppliers of capability and as hosts, not as the primary audience.
The organising body is a semiconductor industry group rather than a quantum organisation or a public research programme, and the venue is a working nanoelectronics research institute. That combination pushes the agenda toward manufacturing, components and industrialisation. Events such as EQTC approach the same technologies from the research and policy side, while the Post-Quantum Cryptography Conference and the Quantum Networks Summit take the security and network angle on two of the same policy threads.
imec is Belgium's nanoelectronics and digital technology research institute, headquartered on its Kapeldreef site in Leuven with cleanroom and process facilities on the campus. Hosting the summit there is what makes the advertised facility tours possible. Leuven sits roughly 25 kilometres east of Brussels and is connected to Brussels Airport by direct train in around fifteen to twenty minutes, with frequent services from Brussels city centre. The organiser has not published a room capacity or an attendance cap for the summit.
The International Semiconductor Industry Group runs a multi-region summit series covering semiconductor industry topics, of which the quantum computing and sensors track is one strand. A sibling edition of the same series ran in Silicon Valley in April 2026. imec is co-host for the European edition, supplying both the venue and a share of the technical programme. The organiser publishes summit information at theisig.com; the event is listed under the quantum computing and sensors summit path on that site, and its official name appears in organiser materials as GQIG Quantum Infra Summit EU.
One of the few European quantum events framed around the semiconductor supply chain rather than the qubit, which makes the guest list more interesting than the agenda.
Registration runs through the official summit page on theisig.com. The organiser operates a tiered pass system rather than a single delegate rate, with tiers named tabletop, supplier partner, associate, investor networker and academia, so the price a given attendee pays depends on whether they are exhibiting at a tabletop, attending as a supplier, investing, or coming from a university.
Exact prices for the Leuven edition were not published at the time of verification. As an order-of-magnitude reference only, the sibling Silicon Valley edition of the same ISIG series charged roughly USD 724 to USD 7,260 depending on tier. That range should not be read as a quote for the European edition: currency, tier definitions and inclusions may all differ, and prospective attendees should request current EU pricing from the organiser directly.
| Pass tier | Intended attendee | Published EU price |
|---|---|---|
| Tabletop | Companies taking exhibit space | Not disclosed by the organiser |
| Supplier partner | Supply chain and component vendors | Not disclosed by the organiser |
| Associate | General business delegates | Not disclosed by the organiser |
| Investor networker | Investors and funds | Not disclosed by the organiser |
| Academia | University and institute attendees | Not disclosed by the organiser |
Not disclosed by the organiser for the Leuven edition at the time of verification. Pricing is tier-based across five pass types. The sibling Silicon Valley edition of the same series ran roughly USD 724 to USD 7,260 by tier, which gives an order of magnitude but not a quote for Europe.
At imec's headquarters in Leuven, Belgium. The most direct arrival route for international attendees is Brussels Airport, with a direct train to Leuven station in around fifteen to twenty minutes and a short onward taxi or bus ride to the imec campus.
The programme includes the Quantum Dealflow Live investor pitch showcase, but the organiser has not published a selection process, application deadline or slot count. Companies interested in pitching should approach the organiser well ahead of the October dates.
The published programme lists imec facility tours and the investor pitch showcase alongside the session content. Which pass tiers include tour access has not been specified by the organiser.
| Official website | https://theisig.com/summits/quantum-computing-sensors-summit/ |
| Registration | Via the official summit page (no standalone registration URL published) |
| Organiser (ISIG) | https://theisig.com/ |
| Host venue (imec) | https://www.imec-int.com/ |
| not disclosed |