- Quantum Technologies 2026
- Chapter 6
Readings from the other desks
The quantum baseline is read through each steward’s lens, then once as a whole. Each lens is a projection of reviewed findings, not a separate argument. The other desks’ own editions of this subject are listed first, as cross-references, not copies.
Contents
- ·Edition home
- ·Executive summary
- 1Quantum is infrastructure and a cryptographic deadline
- 2Key findings
- 3Systems and sectors at baseline
- 4Risks and capability
- 5Long-lived data exposure while migration is slow
- 6Readings from the other desks
- 6.1 The other desks’ editions of this subject
- 6.2 Three lenses
- 6.3 Standards, Academy and steward contributions
- 6.4 GCRI reading: the model card
- 6.5 Global Risks Forum reading: editorial essays
- 6.6 Global Risks Alliance reading: 2027 quantum readiness pack
- 6.7 Nexus Standards reading: standards and regulatory watch
- 6.8 Risk Academy reading: literature and evidence review, science and assessments
- 7The 2027 agenda
- 8Systems in depth
- AMethodology
- BData appendix
- CReferences and record
- ·Complete edition, for print
6.1The other desks’ editions of this subject
Federation: each desk writes its own edition for the subjects in its remit. Until a desk releases, its edition shows its frame and the reading this edition printed for it.
| Desk | Edition | State | Identifier |
|---|---|---|---|
| GCRI Systems Evidence | No edition of this subject at this desk in the 2026 Baseline cycle | Not in this cycle | |
| GRF Public Deliberation | Outside this desk’s remit | Not in remit | |
| GRA Capital Readiness | Outside this desk’s remit | Not in remit | |
| Standards Progress | No edition of this subject at this desk in the 2026 Baseline cycle | Not in this cycle | |
| Academy Capability | No edition of this subject at this desk in the 2026 Baseline cycle | Not in this cycle | |
| Index Measurement | Outside this desk’s remit | Not in remit |
6.2Three lenses
One edition, read by each steward. The lens of this site comes first.
GCRI · KEY T
Technical Truth
The evidence supports reading quantum technology as physical infrastructure and as a cryptographic deadline. Hardware progress is real at small scale, standards are finalised, and the footprint of useful machines is unpublished. Evidence is strongest for standards and single experiments, and weakest for energy, supply and migration progress.
INF-001 · CRY-004 · CRY-005 · SYS-012
GRF · KEY M
Public Meaning
For most people the quantum story arrives as a message about encryption, a headline about a machine or an investment boom. The baseline asks that public debate separate results from plans and vendor claims, and keep the protection of long-lived personal data in view.
CRY-004 · CRY-005 · FIN-008
GRA · KEY F
Capital Meaning
Readiness implications only. Private investment is large, public finance is a small share, and migration has costs that fall on operators11. These show where finance-readiness evidence will matter. Nothing here is advice, a rating or an approval.
FIN-008 · CRY-005
NEXUS
Synthesis
Quantum technology is well described by single results and thinly measured as a system. The 2027 programme should bind migration progress, publish a comparable footprint and test the long-lived data pathway before the next hardware milestone.
SYS-012 · Q-01 · Q-02
6.3Standards, Academy and steward contributions
How the Nexus Standards drafts, the Risk Academy and the three stewards feed each quarterly edition for quantum. The standards are a preparatory working draft (2026) and are cited as drafts, never as adopted standards.
| Quarter | Edition | Question | Boundary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | State and Agenda | What matters this year, and what is the starting position? | observed baseline stays distinct from planned work |
| Q2 | Evidence and Build | What new evidence and capability exist? | a configured capability is not a validated result |
| Q3 | Stress Test and Readiness | What do scenarios and tests show? | simulated loss or performance is not observed impact |
| Q4 | Annual Synthesis and Renewal | What changed in the year, and what renews? | release follows review, not event publicity deadlines |
| Steward or body | Role | Contribution route |
|---|---|---|
| The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI Canada) | Lead Institution and Consortium Secretariat; publisher of record; technical truth (key T) | science and practice communities · GCRI gateway |
| The Global Risks Forum (GRF) | leadership, dialogue and the Universe programme; public meaning (key M) | policy, Universe and national adoption · GRF gateway |
| The Global Risks Alliance (GRA) | finance, insurance and development readiness; capital meaning (key F) | finance and insurance · GRA gateway |
| Nexus Standards | preparatory drafts on vocabulary, hazards, indicators and methods | Standards site · working groups HAZ, IND, MTH, FIN, AI |
| Risk Academy | learning pathways tied to the agenda questions | Academy gateway · learning by review |
| Nexus Standards and Academy | technology chapter inputs: GCRI evidence, NXS standards, RA capability | technology editorial board |
Standards drafts used in this edition
- Risk vocabulary NRS-C1 (424 terms) for terms in the glossary
- Hazard atlas NHS-1 1.1.0 (905 hazards in 120 families) for risk objects
- Seven risk classes: global, catastrophic, existential, emerging, planetary, exponential, frontier-tech
Standards calendar to watch
- Founding calls from 20 October 2026; working groups meet from 5 November 2026
- Inaugural Global Standards Council session, 12 January 2027
- Quarterly reviews in March, June, September and December, aligned with each edition
6.4GCRI reading: the model card
GCRI’s reading of this edition is its model card: what the national model is, what it computes and where it stops. It is printed in full in Annex A, with the methods it belongs to. Annex A, methodology
6.5Global Risks Forum reading: editorial essays
Four signed essays by the Reports editorial team set out the positions this edition takes. They are interpretation, labelled as such; the evidence they draw on is in the findings register.
Quantum technology is a physical build-out and a deadline for cryptography. The first is slow and material; the second is a planning problem that exists now. Keeping them apart avoids both hype and complacency.
EDITORIAL ESSAY · 01
Two stories, one technology
A peer-reviewed experiment, a roadmap and a press announcement carry different weight. This edition labels each, and asks for a common basis before logical-qubit counts are compared.
EDITORIAL ESSAY · 02
Separate results, plans and claims
Cryogenics, helium, materials and power are rarely counted. A published footprint would show whether scale is limited by physics, supply or money.
EDITORIAL ESSAY · 03
The footprint is the blind spot
Standards are finished. The work is inventory, planning and engineering across millions of systems, and it needs dates that national roadmaps are only starting to set.
EDITORIAL ESSAY · 04
Migration is the near-term work
6.6Global Risks Alliance reading: 2027 quantum readiness pack
The registers that open the 2027 global cycle. At baseline each is initialised from this edition.
| Item | Register | State at baseline | First 2027 entry |
|---|---|---|---|
| E1 | Quantum risk state delta | baseline set by this edition | changes against the baseline |
| E2 | WEFH+B state delta | five global system readings set | indicator updates and freshness |
| E3 | Agenda and Portfolio movement | eight agenda items · 6 proposed objects | admission decisions |
| E4 | Federation delivery register | national chapters in preparation | national chapters |
| E5 | Consortium capability register | national consortia forming | first contributions |
| E6 | Leadership questions and challenges | none yet | first challenge log |
| E7 | Foundry technical state | national environments prepared | first federation cut |
| E8 | Publication candidates | twelve findings carried forward | PUBLISH · HOLD dispositions |
| E9 | Universe readiness | one candidate mission | admission and role spine |
| E10 | Correction register | none | first federation-wide cycle |
Publication dispositions
- Publish
- Hold
- Needs evidence
- Restricted
- Superseded
6.7Nexus Standards reading: standards and regulatory watch
Instruments and published guidance that shape the systems in this edition, by status on the retrieval date. The edition assesses no one’s compliance.
- IN FORCE
- PUBLISHED
- DRAFT
- PUBLISHED · VOLUNTARY
| Instrument | Body | Scope | Status | Relevance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIPS 203, 204 and 2053 | NIST | US, used globally | PUBLISHED 2024 | post-quantum algorithms |
| NIST IR 8547 transition report45 | NIST | US | FINAL OCTOBER 2026 | migration |
| NIST IR 8545 on the fourth round16 | NIST | US | PUBLISHED 2025 | backup algorithm |
| EU coordinated roadmap615 | European Commission and Member States | EU | PUBLISHED 2025 | migration milestones |
| CNSA 2.014 | NSA | US national security systems | PUBLISHED | migration timetable |
| ETSI TR 103 61917 | ETSI | Europe | PUBLISHED · VOLUNTARY | migration strategies |
| ISO/IEC JTC 3 on quantum technologies18 | ISO and IEC | global | COMMITTEE ACTIVE | standards programme |
| IEEE 7130-202219 | IEEE | global | PUBLISHED · VOLUNTARY | definitions |
| National Quantum Initiative Act20 | US Congress | US | IN FORCE | national programme |
| G7 Cyber Expert Group statement37 | G7 | G7 | PUBLISHED 2024 | financial-sector planning |
Changed since 2024
6.8Risk Academy reading: literature and evidence review, science and assessments
The review behind this edition covers quantum assessments, peer-reviewed science and the institutional reports that bind its findings. Systematic reviews for each agenda item begin in 2027.
Review protocol
- Question
- What does the published evidence establish about quantum technologies as infrastructure and its couplings?
- Sources searched
- peer-reviewed journals and preprints; standards bodies and agencies; roadmaps; market and supply analyses
- Window
- releases available at evidence close, 30 September 2026
- Selection
- sources that bind or contextualise a finding in this edition
- Next step
- systematic reviews for agenda items 01 to 05 in 2027
| Reference | Type | Year | Role | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Quantum AI2 | journal article | 2025 | supports | error correction |
| Gidney1 | preprint | 2025 | supports | resource estimate |
| Gidney and Ekerå27 | journal article | 2021 | context | earlier estimate |
| Jaschke and Montangero9 | journal article | 2023 | supports | energy efficiency |
| Bluvstein et al.38 | journal article | 2024 | context | neutral-atom logic |
| Bravyi et al.39 | journal article | 2024 | context | qLDPC memory |
| Arute et al.30 | journal article | 2019 | context | quantum supremacy claim |
| Fowler et al.29 | journal article | 2012 | framework | surface codes |
| Reference | Issuer | Year | Role | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preskill25 | journal article | 2018 | framework | NISQ era |
| Shor26 | journal article | 1997 | framework | factoring algorithm |
| Mosca28 | journal article | 2018 | framework | migration timing |
| Campbell, Terhal and Vuillot40 | journal article | 2017 | context | fault-tolerant paths |
| Ladd et al.41 | journal article | 2010 | context | field overview |
| Degen, Reinhard and Cappellaro31 | journal article | 2017 | context | quantum sensing |
| Wehner, Elkouss and Hanson32 | journal article | 2018 | context | quantum networks |
| Reference | Issuer | Year | Role | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NIST post-quantum standards3 | NIST | 2024 | supports | standards |
| NIST IR 8547 initial draft4 | NIST | 2024 | supports | transition plan |
| NIST IR 8547 final5 | NIST | 2026 | context | after evidence close |
| EU roadmap page6 | European Commission | 2025 | supports | roadmap date |
| Quantum policy page7 | European Commission | 2026 | supports | strategy |
| Reference | Issuer | Year | Role | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| IBM roadmap page8 | IBM | 2026 | supports | vendor plan |
| Critical Minerals Outlook 202610 | IEA | 2026 | supports | helium and minerals |
| Quantum Technology Monitor 202611 | McKinsey | 2026 | supports | investment |
| Helios launch release42 | Quantinuum | 2025 | supports | vendor claim |
| Helios October 2026 announcement12 | Quantinuum | 2026 | context | post-close, context only |
| Helium-3 analyses13 | War on the Rocks · CNAS | 2025 to 2026 | context | supply |
| Cryogenic setups33 | Krinner et al. | 2019 | context | dilution refrigerators |
| Quantum Economy Blueprint34 | World Economic Forum | 2024 | context | economy |
Where the evidence agrees
Notes
Numbers are the edition’s reference numbers, so a note reads the same in every chapter. The full list, with every source and its licence, is in Annex C. Annex C, references
- 11UNVERIFIED, not opened: McKinsey and Company (ed.), Quantum Technology Monitor 2026 (startup investment USD 12.6 billion in 2025, 6.3 times 2024; company revenues above USD 1 billion; about 97% private funding), taken from search-result summaries; the chart page returned a service error. McKinsey and Company, New York. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 3NIST (ed.), NIST releases first 3 finalised post-quantum encryption standards (news release, 13 August 2024; FIPS 203, 204, 205). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 4NIST (ed.), Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards, NIST IR 8547, initial public draft (publication page; published 12 November 2024; comment period closed 10 January 2025). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 5POST-CLOSE, context only: NIST (ed.), Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography Standards, NIST IR 8547, final (publication page; document history 27 October 2026, after the 30 September evidence close; abstract refers to Executive Order 14412 and OMB Memorandum M-26-15). National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 16UNVERIFIED, not opened: NIST (ed.), Status Report on the Fourth Round of the NIST Post-Quantum Cryptography Standardization Process, NIST IR 8545, March 2025, cited from memory. National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 6European Commission (ed.), Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (library page; roadmap published 23 June 2025; page updated 3 September 2026; the roadmap milestones were not on the page). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 15UNVERIFIED, not opened: NIS Cooperation Group PQC workstream (eds.), A Coordinated Implementation Roadmap for the Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography (milestones: roadmaps by the end of 2026, high-risk use cases by 2030, as many systems as feasible by 2035), taken from secondary summaries. European Commission, Brussels. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 14UNVERIFIED, not opened: NSA (ed.), Commercial National Security Algorithm Suite 2.0 (CNSA 2.0) advisory and timetable, taken from secondary summaries that differ on some dates. National Security Agency, Fort Meade. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 17UNVERIFIED, not opened: ETSI (ed.), Migration strategies and recommendations for quantum-safe schemes, ETSI TR 103 619, 2020, cited from memory. European Telecommunications Standards Institute, Sophia Antipolis. Observation year 2020. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 18UNVERIFIED, not opened: ISO and IEC (eds.), Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 3, Quantum technologies, committee established 2024, cited from memory. International Organization for Standardization, Geneva. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 19UNVERIFIED, not opened: IEEE (ed.), IEEE Std 7130-2022, Standard for Quantum Computing Definitions, cited from memory. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, New York. Observation year 2022. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 20UNVERIFIED, not opened: National Quantum Initiative Act, Public Law 115-368, United States Congress, 2018, cited from memory. Observation year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 37UNVERIFIED, not opened: G7 Cyber Expert Group (ed.), statement on planning for the opportunities and risks of quantum computing, September 2024, cited from memory. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 7European Commission (ed.), Quantum policy page (Quantum Europe Strategy adopted July 2025; Quantum Act planned for 2026; Quantum Technologies Flagship EUR 1 billion from 2018; EuroHPC quantum computers EUR 100 million, October 2022). Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Brussels. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 2Google Quantum AI and collaborators, Quantum error correction below the surface code threshold, Nature 638, 920 to 926, 2025 (preprint arXiv:2408.13687, August 2024). Springer Nature, London. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 1Gidney, C., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers with less than a million noisy qubits, arXiv:2505.15917, submitted 21 May 2025. arXiv, Ithaca. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 27UNVERIFIED, not opened: Gidney, C. and Ekerå, M., How to factor 2048 bit RSA integers in 8 hours using 20 million noisy qubits, Quantum 5, 433, 2021, cited from memory. Observation year 2021. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 9Jaschke, D. and Montangero, S., Is quantum computing green? An estimate for an energy-efficiency quantum advantage, Quantum Science and Technology 8, 025001, 2023 (preprint arXiv:2205.12092). IOP Publishing, Bristol. Observation year 2023. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 38UNVERIFIED, not opened: Bluvstein, D. et al., Logical quantum processor based on reconfigurable atom arrays, Nature 626, 58 to 65, 2024, cited from memory. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 39UNVERIFIED, not opened: Bravyi, S. et al., High-threshold and low-overhead fault-tolerant quantum memory, Nature 627, 778 to 782, 2024, cited from memory. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 30UNVERIFIED, not opened: Arute, F. et al., Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor, Nature 574, 505 to 510, 2019, cited from memory. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 29UNVERIFIED, not opened: Fowler, A.G. et al., Surface codes: towards practical large-scale quantum computation, Physical Review A 86, 032324, 2012, cited from memory. Observation year 2012. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 25UNVERIFIED, not opened: Preskill, J., Quantum computing in the NISQ era and beyond, Quantum 2, 79, 2018, cited from memory. Observation year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 26UNVERIFIED, not opened: Shor, P.W., Polynomial-time algorithms for prime factorization and discrete logarithms on a quantum computer, SIAM Journal on Computing 26(5), 1484 to 1509, 1997, cited from memory. Observation year 1997. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 28UNVERIFIED, not opened: Mosca, M., Cybersecurity in an era with quantum computers: will we be ready?, IEEE Security and Privacy 16(5), 38 to 41, 2018, cited from memory. Observation year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 40UNVERIFIED, not opened: Campbell, E.T., Terhal, B.M. and Vuillot, C., Roads towards fault-tolerant universal quantum computation, Nature 549, 172 to 179, 2017, cited from memory. Observation year 2017. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 41UNVERIFIED, not opened: Ladd, T.D. et al., Quantum computers, Nature 464, 45 to 53, 2010, cited from memory. Observation year 2010. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 31UNVERIFIED, not opened: Degen, C.L., Reinhard, F. and Cappellaro, P., Quantum sensing, Reviews of Modern Physics 89, 035002, 2017, cited from memory. Observation year 2017. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 32UNVERIFIED, not opened: Wehner, S., Elkouss, D. and Hanson, R., Quantum internet: a vision for the road ahead, Science 362, eaam9288, 2018, cited from memory. Observation year 2018. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 8IBM (ed.), IBM Quantum technology and roadmap page (Nighthawk 120 qubits; Starling planned for 2029 with 200 logical qubits and 100 million gates; statement on advantage in 2026). IBM, Armonk. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 10IEA (ed.), Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2026 (revised version, July 2026). International Energy Agency, Paris. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 42Quantinuum (ed.), Quantinuum announces commercial launch of Helios (press release, 5 November 2025; 98 qubits, 99.921% two-qubit and 99.9975% single-qubit gate fidelity; 94 error-detected and 48 error-corrected logical qubits; no logical gate fidelity stated). Quantinuum, Broomfield. Observation year 2025. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 12UNVERIFIED, not opened: POST-CLOSE, context only: Quantinuum (ed.), announcement of 99.9995% logical fidelity on the Helios system, October 2026, taken from a news summary of a company release; no peer-reviewed paper was located. Quantinuum, Broomfield. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 13UNVERIFIED, not opened: War on the Rocks (ed.), The supply chain chokepoints in quantum (October 2025), and CNAS (ed.), report on helium-3 recovery and reserves (March 2026), taken from search-result summaries. Observation year 2026. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 33UNVERIFIED, not opened: Krinner, S. et al., Engineering cryogenic setups for 100-qubit scale superconducting circuit systems, EPJ Quantum Technology 6, 2, 2019, cited from memory. Observation year 2019. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 34UNVERIFIED, not opened: World Economic Forum (ed.), Quantum Economy Blueprint, January 2024, cited from memory. WEF, Geneva. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back
- 24UNVERIFIED, not opened: United Nations General Assembly resolution A/RES/78/287 proclaiming 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, 2024, cited from memory. United Nations, New York. Observation year 2024. Accessed 2026-11-03.back