A NATIONAL PROGRAMME STRUCTURED AROUND SPOKES

Leonardo has announced the conclusion of its contribution to the National Quantum Science and Technology Institute, known as NQSTI. The programme’s objective was to connect quantum science and technology with industrial needs through outreach and training, bringing together 20 Italian organisations under an Innovation Grant programme to study and manipulate quantum objects — atoms, molecules, photons and electrons — with a view to future industrial application.

NQSTI is a strategic initiative funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research under Directorial Decree No. 1564 of 11 October 2022, within Mission 4, Component 2, Investment 1.3 of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan — the ‘Extended Partnerships among Universities, Research Centres and Companies’ instrument — and by the European Union through the NextGenerationEU fund. The Spoke model under which it is organised is the standard structure for these Italian extended partnerships: a central hub coordinates a set of thematic Spokes, each led by a different institution and drawing participants from across academia and industry, with the explicit purpose of moving low Technology Readiness Level research toward prototypes rather than leaving it in the laboratory.

Leonardo participated in the technological development of four Spokes, working on new quantum architectures, photon-based quantum technologies, the integration of quantum devices into functional test systems, and the modelling and characterisation of the quantum demonstrators developed. The company committed 32 personnel across its Genoa, Rome and Florence sites, against an overall budget of €1,660,462.33, of which 60% of eligible costs were funded by the Ministry.

THE FOUR TECHNICAL STRANDS

The first strand concerned the preparation of homogeneous and hybrid atomic, molecular and ionic systems with reduced entropy, pursued through new schemes for detecting quantum states at high spatial, temporal and spectroscopic resolution, together with optimal quantum control protocols designed to maximise the fidelity and speed of specific quantum tasks. Reducing entropy in these systems is the practical precondition for using them: a quantum system carrying disorder cannot hold a defined state long enough to be useful, and control protocols that raise fidelity determine how many operations can be performed before the state degrades.

The second strand addressed photonic quantum states, investigating a range of materials — including molecules and semiconductor quantum dots — alongside technologies and architectures spanning one-dimensional, two-dimensional and heterostructured geometries, across both bulk and integrated platforms. The objective was to develop sources of photonic quantum states and detectors operating in the single-photon and multiphoton regimes. The third strand focused on integrating individual quantum objects into the building blocks of computing, simulation and sensing architectures, with emphasis on scalable networks of interacting qubits and on new methods for high-fidelity control and readout. The fourth covered modelling and characterisation, developing integration techniques for combining dedicated modules into systems capable of sensing, transmission and processing together, and designing interfaces for managing the resulting signals.

WHAT LEONARDO TAKES FROM IT

Leonardo states that its contribution strengthened the company’s expertise in emerging technologies, supported the development of solutions in strategic fields and reinforced collaboration with universities and research centres, with the project demonstrating how cooperation between industry and academia can generate innovation with direct benefits for security and for the future industrialisation of low-TRL technologies. The applications identified span industrial and security domains. For a company whose recent activity has included a $450 million acquisition of AI mission software specialist Raft through Leonardo DRS and an internal Microsoft Copilot deployment across approximately 50,000 employees, the NQSTI work sits at the opposite end of the maturity curve — foundational research rather than deployable capability, and undertaken on a timescale where the industrial payoff is measured in a decade rather than a quarter.