May 13 2025 -- In Tokyo, the Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy Henna Virkkunen and the Japanese Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy Minoru Kiuchi signed a Letter of Intent on Strengthening Cooperation in the Area of Quantum Science and Technology.

The Letter of Intent seeks to enhance cooperation between the European and Japanese quantum science and technology stakeholders. It is one of the concrete deliverables under the EU-Japan Digital Partnership established in May 2022 and is building further on the longstanding EU-Japan cooperation in science and technology. It was signed at the occasion of the third Digital Partnership Council, which took place in Tokyo on 12 May 2025.

The recent EU-Japan call for collaborative projects in quantum computing is an example of concrete implementation activities stimulated by the Letter of Intent. Under this call, the Q-NEKO project has just been selected, supported with EUR 4 million EU funding. The project brings together 16 European and Japanese partners to advance hardware, software, and hybrid high-performance computing-quantum computing environments. This includes applications related to biomedical, material science, seismic/tsunami and/or weather and climate modelling, also leveraging utilisation of quantum-enhanced machine learning and artificial intelligence.