An Australian strategy for the quantum revolution

C. P. Foley

Peter Pockley

Researchers in Australia have boldly declared that they will produce a prototype building block for the world's first quantum computer within 12 months. Quantum computers would exploit the ability of a particle to be in two quantum states at the same time, allowing them, in principle, to outperform classical computers by many orders of magnitude in some operations. Staff at the Australian Centre for Quantum Computing Technology say that a device based on two quantum bits, or “qubits”, will be ready within a year. While groups in other countries are pursing different strategies, the Australian scientists are basing their research on silicon chips, which, they say, have the advantage of already being widely used in industry.

Jonathan P. Dowling

Australian physicist Gerard Milburn and I coined the phrase “e Second Quantum Revolution” in an invited paper, entitled “Quantum Technology: e Second Quantum Revolution,” which was published in 2003 in The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, a journal founded in 1662 that claims to be “the world’s rst science journal.” (A number of Isaac Newton’s papers appeared in this journal in the 1600s and 1700s, and then came ours in 2003. So much for quality control.) is paper began its life as a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Technical Brief that I routed to various NASA program managers in the early 2000s as a tutorial on quantum technologies. I had stolen the term “Quantum Technology” from a book Milburn published in Australia in 1996 by that same name.1 In the fall of 2002, I mentioned to Milburn at a workshop that I was working on this paper and he informed me that he had been asked to write a review article for The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, on exactly that topic, and so we joined forces, and this publication was the result. It is likely the rst (and probably the last) time a NASA Technical Brief made it into The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. at paper has been cited only a paltry 47 times but I often see it quoted in talks and public lectures, particularly the rst sentence of the abstract: “We are currently in the midst of a second quantum revolution. e rst quantum revolution gave us new rules that govern physical reality. e second quantum revolution will take these rules and use them to develop new technologies.” Without reproducing this entire paper, which is easy enough for you to read yourself, let me blunder on a bit about what ideas we were trying to get across.2

K. Borras

Adamson, Greg

This 6,000-word policy and capability paper applies the RSQS framework—Relevance, Sufficiency, Quality, Structure, Delivery, and Drift-Risk—to evaluate global and Australian quantum training ecosystems. It benchmarks Australia’s research-led strengths against international workforce strategies, identifying structural gaps and proposing a Quantum Workforce Compact and a National Quantum Credential Spine (NQCS). The analysis recommends coordinated credential architecture, industry apprenticeships, and metrics aligned with the National Quantum Strategy (2023–2030). The work forms part of the Adamson Institute’s national RSQS Governance Series.

Amal Kasry