— That’s a Big Deal

For the first time, a major national competition authority has launched a formal inquiry into the quantum computing sector before it matures. The implications for how this industry develops could be profound.

Something historically unusual happened in Rome towards the end of the first quarter of this year. On March 17, the Italian Competition Authority — known by its Italian acronym, AGCM — opened a formal sector inquiry into quantum computing. It also launched a parallel public consultation, inviting industry stakeholders to submit observations by April 30. On its own, that might sound like routine regulatory housekeeping. It isn’t. This is the first time a major national antitrust regulator has trained its sights on quantum computing while the technology is still in its early commercial phase — and it signals that the window for shaping the competitive landscape of quantum may be shorter than many in the industry assume.

The AGCM is not investigating a specific company or a specific alleged infringement. Instead, it is doing something subtler and arguably more consequential: mapping the competitive dynamics of an emerging sector before those dynamics calcify into something that is very hard to undo. The lessons of AI and cloud computing weigh heavily on this decision, and regulators in Rome — and increasingly across Europe — appear determined not to repeat them.

The Ghost of AI Past

The AGCM’s inquiry document is unusually candid about its motivation. Europe, it notes, watched as artificial intelligence emerged, scaled, and consolidated around a small number of large technology companies — primarily American hyperscalers — before regulators had a coherent framework for evaluating what was happening to competition. By the time serious antitrust scrutiny arrived, the market structures were already largely set. Unwinding them proved difficult, costly, and in many cases, insufficient.

Regulators are tired of arriving at the scene after the consolidation has already happened.

Quantum computing, the AGCM argues, is at an inflection point that AI was at perhaps a decade ago: technically maturing, commercially accelerating, and — critically — still open enough that early interventions could meaningfully shape who wins and on what terms. The regulator explicitly frames its inquiry as pre-emptive. This is not about correcting existing harm. It is about understanding what harms might arise, and building the analytical and legal groundwork to address them before they become structural.

This framing aligns with the EU’s broader policy direction. The European Competitiveness Compass, published in January 2025, and the Quantum Europe Strategy, released in July 2025, both identify quantum computing as a strategic technology for European economic sovereignty. They also explicitly link industrial ambition to competition policy — acknowledging that public investment alone is insufficient if market structures allow dominant players to appropriate the returns of that investment.

What Is the AGCM Actually Worried About?

The inquiry identifies five interconnected risks, each of which will be familiar to anyone who has watched the evolution of cloud computing or semiconductor supply chains.

FIVE COMPETITIVE RISKS UNDER SCRUTINY

• Vertical integration by early movers. The boundary between quantum hardware and software remains blurry, and companies that develop hardware tend also to define the software layers above it. This creates durable structural advantages for incumbents that arrive early.
• Hyperscaler gatekeeping. Companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Amazon are already offering quantum access through cloud platforms — a model the AGCM calls “Quantum-as-a-Service.” If this becomes the primary mode of access, these companies may effectively control who gets to use quantum computing and on what terms, extending their existing cloud dominance into an entirely new domain.
• Technological lock-in. Without common standards, users who build workflows on one provider’s quantum platform may find it prohibitively costly to switch — a dynamic already well understood from enterprise cloud computing, now potentially replaying at a more fundamental layer of technology.
• Patent pre-emption. Quantum-related patent filings have surged at a rate outpacing other advanced technology sectors. The AGCM is concerned that this could allow a small number of well-resourced players to fence off key technological trajectories, foreclosing entry for startups and academic spin-outs that cannot afford extensive IP litigation.
• Strategic acquisitions of startups. Early-stage companies building quantum processors, error-correction methods, or application-layer software represent the sector’s diversity and long-term dynamism. If they are systematically acquired by large incumbents before they can scale independently, that diversity narrows — and with it, the range of approaches that can compete.

None of these risks is hypothetical. Each has a direct analogue in the history of cloud computing, mobile operating systems, or semiconductor manufacturing. The AGCM is essentially asking: are the same dynamics already forming in quantum, and if so, what should be done about it?

The Hyperscaler Problem, Up Close

Of the five risks, the hyperscaler question deserves particular attention from the quantum industry. Google, IBM, Microsoft, and Amazon are not merely participants in the quantum ecosystem — they are, in many respects, already its infrastructure. Each has invested billions of dollars in quantum hardware and research. Each offers cloud-based quantum access. Each has the enterprise relationships, data center footprint, and developer tooling to make their particular quantum platform the path of least resistance for the customers who matter most.

The AGCM frames this as a gatekeeping risk — the possibility that companies which already control Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) markets will be able to use that position to structure the emerging quantum market around their own platforms. Businesses that are already deeply embedded in AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud will naturally gravitate toward those companies’ quantum offerings. Switching costs compound over time. And the companies best positioned to set de facto standards for quantum software interfaces and data formats are the same ones with the most to gain from lock-in.

This is not a theoretical concern. It is already happening, slowly and without fanfare, in the way quantum offerings are bundled with existing cloud services. The AGCM wants to understand how far this has progressed and whether it is heading toward a market structure that will be very difficult to contest.

What Happens Next?

The inquiry runs on two parallel tracks. The public consultation closes on April 30, 2026. The underlying sector inquiry is scheduled to conclude by December 31, 2026. At the end of that process, the AGCM will publish a final report. Depending on what it finds, it has the legal tools — established under Italian law — to impose structural or behavioural measures directly, or to open formal antitrust investigations under EU competition law.

Crucially, the AGCM’s findings will not stay in Rome. The inquiry’s conclusions are likely to feed directly into the European Commission’s ongoing investigation into cloud computing under the Digital Markets Act, which is examining whether existing obligations adequately address fairness and contestability in cloud markets. The EC expects to publish its own findings by May 2027, and may use them to update DMA obligations for cloud providers. If the AGCM’s quantum inquiry identifies specific practices by hyperscalers — bundling, interoperability restrictions, data portability barriers — those findings become ammunition in a much larger European regulatory reckoning.

Why This Matters for the Quantum Industry

For quantum companies — whether you are building hardware, developing algorithms, running a cloud access platform, or advising enterprises on quantum readiness — the ICA inquiry is not an abstract legal event. It is an early signal of the regulatory environment that will govern this industry as it matures.

Companies that have built their strategies around partnering with hyperscalers, or that rely on proprietary interfaces without a clear story on interoperability, or that have accumulated IP portfolios with aggressive licensing terms, should be paying close attention. The inquiry is a preview of the questions that regulators will be asking — in Italy, then Brussels, and eventually more broadly — as quantum computing becomes commercially significant.

There is also an opportunity here. The consultation closes April 30. The AGCM has explicitly invited input from market participants — hardware companies, software developers, end users, research institutions. The final report will reflect the evidence submitted. Most companies will not participate. The ones that do will have a meaningful chance to shape how regulators understand the sector: its competitive dynamics, its genuine barriers to entry, and the policy interventions that would help rather than hinder innovation.

TQS Takeaway

Europe is making a deliberate choice not to let quantum computing develop in a regulatory vacuum. Whether that is welcome news depends largely on where you sit in the ecosystem. For startups and challengers who face well-resourced incumbents with deep cloud relationships and vast patent portfolios, early antitrust attention may be exactly what the market needs. For the hyperscalers themselves, it is a signal that the regulatory scrutiny they have faced in cloud, search, and mobile is coming for quantum too — and this time, it is arriving early.

The significance of this inquiry lies in its timing. By moving early, regulators are signalling that the quantum market will not be allowed to form unchecked, particularly where it intersects with existing concentrations of power. This is not simply about competition. It is about control of the next layer of digital infrastructure — and the rules under which that control is exercised.

The quantum stack may still be under construction, but the battle over who shapes it has already begun.

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Sources

Quantum Computing Sector Inquiry (2026) https://www.agcm.it/ (Primary source — the actual inquiry announcement and scope)

The Italian Competition Authority’s Quantum Computing Inquiry https://www.hoganlovells.com/en/publications/the-italian-competition-authoritys-quantum-computing-inquiry (Clear legal interpretation and breakdown of the inquiry focus areas)

Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) Policy Framework https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu (Context for why quantum is treated as strategic infrastructure)

Competition Policy for the Digital Age https://ec.europa.eu/competition-policy (Framework underpinning early intervention in digital markets)

Emerging Trends in Quantum Technologies and Competition https://www.oecd.org (Broader policy thinking on competition risks in quantum ecosystems)

Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization https://www.nist.gov (Signals the parallel US-led technical race — useful contrast to EU regulatory posture)

Digital Markets Act (DMA) https://eur-lex.europa.eu (Reference point for EU’s approach to controlling gatekeepers before dominance expands)