After a previous 2022 prize dedicated to cybersecurity, this year the PTN jury wanted to look ahead to the coming revolutions in digital infrastructures: below the nanometer, beyond the current technological generations of semiconductors, even beyond the limits of statistical physics, what infrastructures will tomorrow's digital world rely on?

The quantum computer is one of those industrial revolutions that are both hoped for and feared.

Since the advent of transistors and semiconductors, the digital industry has become accustomed to exponential growth, with an empirical Moore's Law guaranteeing a doubling of computing capacity at constant intervals. However, this law is reaching the limit of its validity, at a scale of miniaturization where the statistical physics that underpins electronics no longer applies.

By exploring other features of quantum mechanics, such as entanglement and superposition of states, quantum computers are betting on the use of qubits (non-deterministic bits of information) to enable computational methods such as solving complete NP (non-deterministic polynomial) algorithms in linear time.

If they ever live up to their promise, quantum computers will herald a quantum leap in computing power, shaking up some of our digital achievements, such as the practical inviolability of conventional encryption methods.

While no one can predict exactly when fully-functional quantum computers will appear, or whether their properties will be fully quantum, the race for this industrial development is on. And alongside the few global giants in the running, the PTN jury wanted to highlight two of the French start-ups holding the rope, Alice et Bob and Pasqal, who are each exploring, with very different technological biases, the path towards a fully-functional industrial quantum computer.

At the same time, electronics continues to evolve in other directions, notably with the progress made in photonics, which makes it possible to envisage industrial-scale acceleration of data transmissions, the basis of the data center market in particular. The PTN jury wanted to highlight this less publicized revolution by awarding the prize to Scintil Photonics, a company spun off from CEA laboratories, which is taking part in this industrial race.

Finally, because the Covid crisis and geopolitical conflicts have revealed the fragility of a fragmented global supply chain in times of crisis, support for the digital industry and the reindustrialization of certain sectors requires the investment of powerful players. In this respect, the PTN jury decided to award its Manager's Prize to Jean-Marc Chéry, who has just been reappointed CEO of ST Microelectronics, Europe's leading manufacturer of electronic components, for the long-term strategy he is pursuing within his company, which has resulted in the relocation of semiconductor manufacturing plants to France.

If digital technology is to continue to deliver on its economic and societal promises, a key part of the battle will be to transform these markets and the e-infrastructure technologies they use.