Securing the quantum stack: export controls, choke points and strategic competition

International Institute for Strategic Studies  |  Dongyoun Cho, Maria Shagina

The United States and its allies have established aligned export controls targeting critical choke points across the quantum-computing supply chain to prevent military exploitation by strategic rivals. These measures, coordinated through plurilateral arrangements outside the deadlocked Wassenaar Arrangement, seek to constrain future adversary capabilities before they become commercially widespread.

This regulatory shift targets highly concentrated nodes, including Finnish dilution refrigerators, British synthetic diamonds, and global isotopes, which are indispensable for hardware development. However, these restrictions have prompted China to accelerate domestic production of alternative technologies, such as proprietary cooling systems, highlighting the limits of unilateral denial. To counter these supply-chain reconfigurations, Western governments are increasingly pairing export restrictions with robust industrial policies, including the US National Quantum Initiative Act and European funding programs. Ultimately, sustaining long-term technological leadership will depend on the capacity of allied markets to absorb and fund the very critical nodes their control lists seek to protect.

Comment

Plurilateral export controls targeting specialised hardware like Bluefors dilution refrigerators reveal the acute vulnerability of highly concentrated dual-use supply chains. The paralysis of the Wassenaar Arrangement forces Western states to rely on narrow, ad-hoc coalitions to restrict access. This strategy assumes that alternative manufacturing ecosystems cannot easily replicate high-precision cryogenic engineering. However, the rapid mobilisation of Chinese state capital to fund domestic alternatives demonstrates how targeted denials can inadvertently accelerate rival industrial self-reliance.

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