QC Design and the EIC Accelerator: Design Software for Quantum Chips

QC Design, founded in Ulm by chief executive Ish Dhand and physicist Martin Plenio, sells Plaquette, design-automation software that helps quantum computer makers simulate how their hardware's imperfections turn into errors and choose error-correction schemes to reach fault tolerance. Its EIC Accelerator project, QPRINTS, "Fault-Tolerant Architectures and Software for Scalable Quantum Computers", receives an EU contribution of €2,493,000 and runs from April 2025 to March 2027, according to CORDIS. CORDIS shows the grant agreement was signed on 6 November 2025, 16 months after QC Design announced its selection in July 2024 with a €2.5 million grant and up to €1.5 million of equity for its seed round, according to QC Design.

The first report says QC Design built a full-stack simulation workflow linking device parameters to logical error rates, with five interoperable libraries modelling hardware-specific imperfections, from photon loss in optical systems to noise in trapped ions and spin qubits, according to CORDIS. The project aims to deliver platform-tailored architecture "blueprints" and performance "boosts" for several hardware types. Commercially, QUDORA in Germany (December 2025), C12 in France (March 2026) and Yaqumo in Japan (February 2026) adopted Plaquette, and Quantum Source and ZuriQ piloted it, according to QC Design. In September 2026 it integrated Plaquette with NVIDIA's CUDA-Q Logical.

Where QC Design Stands Now

QC Design keeps adding products: Gauge, launched in April 2026 to compute the best achievable error-correction threshold for a given code and noise, and Meridian, an AI system that it says cut logical error rates more than tenfold across over 100 design tasks, according to QC Design. Its news shows customers in Europe and Asia. Revenue, contract sizes and any funding round beyond the EIC package have not been disclosed, and its accounts were not accessible in free sources.

The Technology: Electronic Design Automation for Qubits

Today's quantum devices are error-prone, and fault tolerance requires combining many noisy physical qubits into reliable logical qubits. Smaller hardware companies often lack large error-correction teams, the EIC report says. Plaquette simulates their specific devices and error-correction codes so they can see which designs will work before building them, comparable to the role design software plays for conventional chips.

What the EIC Award Promised, and What the Record Shows

The project runs until March 2027, so it is too early to judge it. The long gap between selection and signature means the EIC's money arrived late, but the software work and customer adoption continued regardless. The architecture blueprints for specific platforms are the project's remaining deliverables.

1. Simulation workflowDeliveredFive libraries.
2. Customer uptakeGrowingThree adoptions.
3. Platform blueprintsIn progressDue by 2027.
4. EIC equity investedNot disclosedUp to €1.5M offered.

The Money

The EIC package was small on the equity side, up to €1.5 million for the seed round. Whether it was invested has not been announced. QC Design's disclosed investors include Quantonation, whose partner commented on the EIC award.

What Cannot Be Checked

Why Europe Should Care

Europe has many small quantum hardware start-ups, and shared design tools lower the cost of each reaching fault tolerance. QC Design's customers include French and German hardware makers, but also Japanese and Israeli ones.

The Verdict

QC Design and the EIC have not been asked for comment for this article. It is based entirely on public records and published statements, linked throughout.