Catherine Thorbecke
Step aside, artificial intelligence. Another transformative technology with the potential to reshape industries and reorder geopolitical power is finally moving out of the lab: quantum.
The United Nations dubbed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. It’s been marked by a flurry of announcements — and a mountain of hype — around a mind-boggling field of science long dismissed as perpetually a decade away from usefulness. But that’s how people talked about AI, too, before ChatGPT spurred the current global arms race and investor euphoria.
Quantum technology taps the odd mechanics of quantum physics — how particles behave at the atomic level — to create computers, sensors and communications gear that are exponentially more powerful than today’s. Classic computers process information in bits, which can be represented as “0” or “1.” Quantum computers use qubits, which — bear with me for a moment — can exist in a superposition of both states at the same time. That allows them to evaluate a vast number of possibilities at extraordinary speed.
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