Quantum computing: A tech race Europe could win?

In a lab on the western edge of Paris, where the River Seine flows wide and trams slide past glass-fronted buildings and blossoming cherry trees, a technician called Rémi makes some adjustments with a spanner. The machine, a cascade of gold and silver-coloured cylinders descending through a cloud of wires, is a cryostat, its purpose: to create an ultra-cold environment. At the bottom of the cylinder temperatures are down to minus 273 degrees Celsius. At that temperature thermal vibrations are minimised. Isolation from the outside world is complete. In this cylinder is placed a small case, again of gold and silver colour, in which is inserted a chip. This chip is another, tinier box inside of which takes place the phenomenon discovered by Albert Einstein and other physicists that seems to defy the mechanics of the world we live in: the quantum leap, when particles change energy levels in ways that are predictable, reproducible and apparently impossible. Around us there are several vertical cylinders like so many different-sized water heaters. They all contain cryostats like the one Rémi is tinkering with. Oh, and these machines have another name. They are quantum computers. This is