Elena Zancanaro
Technological shifts have always reshaped international relations. The nuclear revolution redefined the global order after 1945, splitting the world into deterrence-based camps and spurring the creation of arms control treaties. The digital revolution of the late twentieth century brought both the promise of connectivity and the peril of cyber vulnerabilities, forcing states to rethink sovereignty in cyberspace. Artificial intelligence today raises questions of ethics, surveillance, and competitive advantage, pressing policymakers to create frameworks that balance innovation and restraint. Now, a new frontier is opening: the second quantum revolution.
Quantum technologies, computing, communication, and sensing are no longer confined to experimental physics labs. They are being branded as strategic assets, pursued with intensity by the United States, China, the European Union, India, Japan, and others. Their potential is staggering. Quantum computers could simulate chemical interactions with unprecedented accuracy, accelerating drug discovery and green energy solutions. Quantum sensors could map underground resources or detect submarines with levels of precision beyond classical devices. Quantum communications promise theoretically unbreakable cryptography, relying on the fundamental properties of entanglement. Yet alongside these breakthroughs lie equally disruptive risks. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could undermine the cryptographic backbone of modern digital life, threatening banking systems, secure communications, and military command structures (Mosca 2018).
The stakes are therefore not simply scientific but geopolitical. Governments see quantum not just as a new tool of innovation but as a lever of power. The metaphor of a ‘quantum race’ has entered policy discussions, evoking Cold War imagery of nuclear competition. But unlike nuclear weapons, which exploded into international consciousness in 1945 with devastating clarity, quantum technologies are developing incrementally, in laboratories and corporate research centres, with uneven visibility and uncertain timelines. This ambiguity creates both danger and opportunity. The danger is that mistrust and secrecy could accelerate an arms race dynamic, where states hoard breakthroughs and fear adversaries’ hidden progress. The opportunity is that, because quantum remains at an early stage, there is still time to craft governance frameworks before its most destabilising impacts unfold (Just Security 2024).
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