UPDATE 1-France's Macron to announce €1.5 billion for quantum computing, advanced microchips

French President Emmanuel Macron will announce ​on Friday that France will ‌invest ​an additional €1 billion ($1.16 billion) in its quantum strategy and €550 million in a support programme for the microelectronics sector, as global powers race ‌to be first to leverage emerging technology. The announcement will come a day after the Trump administration unveiled plans to take $2 billion in equity stakes across nine quantum-computing companies to push to ‌secure U.S. leadership in the technology that is set to become the next frontier ‌after AI. * Technological breakthroughs have deepened investor interest in quantum computing's potential to speed up tasks from drug discovery to financial modelling and cryptography.

* A "massive" increase in investment has been driven by the realisation that computing ⁠infrastructure is "more ​and more crucial in ⁠our economies", Theau Peronnin, CEO of quantum computing firm Alice & Bob, told Reuters. * The company is among those ⁠to receive support from the new French funding, and said on Friday it has also won ​funding from Nvidia's venture capital arm NVentures to develop hardware to make quantum computing ⁠less error-prone.

* Alice & Bob focuses on "cat qubits", a type of quantum bit designed to be more resistant to ⁠errors ​than normal qubits, addressing one of quantum computing's biggest problems. * The new investment, which adds to a €100 million Series B round raised last year, follows collaboration between Alice & Bob ⁠and Nvidia on several projects recently.

* The company is participating in France's PROQCIMA programme led ⁠by the Ministry ⁠of the Armed Forces, which aims to have two French-designed prototypes of universal quantum computers ready for industrialisation by 2032. ($1 = 0.8618 euros)

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