Quantum technology is an emergent area with the potential to be disruptive and ability to affect many human activities. Quantum technologies are dual-use technologies, and as such, they are the subject of interest for the defence and security industry and military and governmental actors. This report aims to review and map the possible quantum technology military applications to serve as the entry point for international peace and international security assessment, ethics research or military and governmental policy, strategy and decision making. Quantum technologies for military applications, introducing new capabilities, increasing effectiveness and improving precision lead to 'quantum warfare', wherein new military strategies, doctrines, policies and ethics should be established. This report provides a basic overview of quantum technologies under development where the expected time scale of delivery or utilisation impact are estimated. The particular applications of quantum technology for the military are described for various warfare domains (e.g., cyber, space, electronic, underwater warfare, or intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance), and related issues and challenges are articulated.
Quantum technology is an emergent area with the potential to be disruptive and ability to affect many human activities. Quantum technologies are dual-use technologies, and as such, they are the subject of interest for the defence and security industry and military and governmental actors. This report aims to review and map the possible quantum technology military applications to serve as the entry point for international peace and international security assessment, ethics research or military and governmental policy, strategy and decision making. Quantum technologies for military applications, introducing new capabilities, increasing effectiveness and improving precision lead to 'quantum warfare', wherein new military strategies, doctrines, policies and ethics should be established. This report provides a basic overview of quantum technologies under development where the expected time scale of delivery or utilisation impact are estimated. The particular applications of quantum technology for the military are described for various warfare domains (e.g., cyber, space, electronic, underwater warfare, or intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition, and reconnaissance), and related issues and challenges are articulated.
Abstract Quantum technology is an emergent and potentially disruptive discipline, with the ability to affect many human activities. Quantum technologies are dual-use technologies, and as such are of interest to the defence and security industry and military and governmental actors. This report reviews and maps the possible quantum technology military applications, serving as an entry point for international peace and security assessment, ethics research, military and governmental policy, strategy and decision making. Quantum technologies for military applications introduce new capabilities, improving effectiveness and increasing precision, thus leading to ‘quantum warfare’, wherein new military strategies, doctrines, policies and ethics should be established. This report provides a basic overview of quantum technologies under development, also estimating the expected time scale of delivery or the utilisation impact. Particular military applications of quantum technology are described for various warfare domains (e.g. land, air, space, electronic, cyber and underwater warfare and ISTAR—intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance), and related issues and challenges are articulated.
Quantum technology (QT) is an emergent area with the potential to be disruptive and affect many human activities. QT also is a typical technology with significant dual-use applications. Specifically, the potential QT military applications were recently mapped. Although QTs do not introduce any new standalone weapon systems, they can significantly sharpen present weapon systems as well as command and control systems, including in the cyber domain. On the other hand, they also can provide non-eavesdropping secure communication or enhanced medical imaging. This contribution aims to introduce QTs and their possible applications, current status and activities related to the defence sector. Then, the military-related applications will be discussed more in detail, and potential problems for international security will be mentioned. In the end, we provide arguments why QTs should be assessed, and we ask selected questions that should be answered.
While the fundamental nature of war remains constant, military strategies continue to evolve in response to capabilities enabled by new technologies. Therefore, military leaders must be aware of emerging and disruptive technologies to maintain forces that are relevant. One such technology is quantum technology, which has received a great deal of attention in the past few years due to its potential application in a wide range of areas. Particularly, quantum technology promises breakthroughs in various domains of warfare by significantly enhancing current military technology. This article explores three major defense applications of quantum technology—quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum communication—and their impact on future warfare based on realistic assessment.
Quantum technology is an emerging and possibly revolutionary field, capable of impacting several human efforts. Quantum technologies are dual-use, attracting interest from the defense, security, military, and governmental sectors. Previous research has highlighted the substantial benefits of using quantum computing systems across several domains. These systems have previously exhibited the capability to accelerate processing in critical domains, such as big integer factorization, relative to their traditional equivalents. The fundamental significance of quantum factoring has been proven for cryptography. This will render RSA encryption, a widely used encryption method based on the inability of computer systems to factor huge integers, effectively useless. Nonetheless, overcoming encryption is not the only potential use or benefit of quantum computing for national defense and security-related objectives. This review paper explores the emerging role of quantum computing in the military and defense sectors. It highlights the significance of recent advancements in quantum technologies for defense applications and provides an overview of defense-focused quantum research. A comprehensive literature survey examined various existing quantum computing techniques relevant to military use. The paper also presents a comparative analysis of these approaches, discusses key challenges, and outlines potential future directions in this rapidly evolving field.
Quantum technologies enable potential disruptive changes by means of quantum computing, quantum communication and cryptography, and quantum sensing for both the civil and the defence domain. Quantum technologies offer potentially enhanced capabilities for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as critical advancements in information security and cryptography. This paper provides decision makers with an overview of the different quantum technology fields and main application areas. Since quantum technology has by its nature a strong dual-use character, potential use cases for the defence sector are highlighted. The level of maturity of quantum technologies in the various fields is discussed and recommendations for next steps are derived for stakeholders to shape further quantum technology development. In order to understand potential risks and ethics considerations, it is of fundamental importance to complement the R&D activities with a sound global multi-stakeholder dialogue. Thus, this paper discusses the essential factors for the design of effective governance rules and summarises recommended measures to develop and operate quantum technology-based solutions in a responsible ethical framework in the civil as well as in the defence domain following digital humanism objectives.
The so-called area of quantum technologies is a new and disruptive technological field, essentially from physics and engineering, with the ability to affect almost all human activities. They are based on the properties of quantum mechanics like quantum tunneling, quantum entanglement, and quantum superposition. Examples of areas of application of these emerging technologies are quantum computing, quantum communications, quantum sensing, quantum cryptography, quantum internet, quantum imaging, quantum metrology, quantum biology, among others. These technologies are of the interest of both the defense and security industry, and military and governmental actors. For military applications, and after a strong advanced engineering process, these technologies introduce new capabilities, improving effectiveness and increasing precision, thus leading to the so-called quantum warfare, wherein new military strategies, doctrines, policies, and ethics should be established. In particular, these military applications of quantum technologies can be described for various warfare domains like land, air, space, electronic, cyber, and underwater warfare and also for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance. Among those applications mentioned before, quantum computing is expected to have a number of important uses such as optimization and machine learning, associated to both artificial intelligence and blockchain. Quantum computers are perhaps best known for their expected ability to carry out Shor’s algorithm, which can be used to factorize large numbers and is an important process in the securing of data transmissions, essential for military applications. In this review of our own work, we show the physics and some of the applications of the Josephson junction which plays and important and essential role in the fabrication of quantum computers with superconducting qubits. Nowadays, applications of Josephson junction devices go from the most sensitive sensor to measure magnetic flux, called S.QU.I.D. (from Superconducting Quantum Interference Device) to the core of quantum computers, the quantum bits. The Josephson junction is an old quantum engine for a rising new world with incredible disruptive technological possibilities in engineering, especially in military applications where it plays a fundamental strategic differential for National Security and Defense.