A concise digest compiled from reports and analyses curated by The Qubit Report (2020).
The first quarter of 2020 marked an acceleration in quantum computing as major technology companies opened broader access to quantum resources through cloud platforms while governments around the world announced large-scale national investments. Although fully scalable, fault-tolerant systems remained a future goal, significant progress in hardware stability, cryptographic preparedness, and practical cloud-based experimentation emerged. These developments were indicators of a maturing ecosystem shifting from foundational research toward strategic deployment and wider industry engagement.
Amazon launched AWS Braket, a managed service providing access to diverse quantum hardware from partners like Rigetti and IonQ. IBM expanded its IBM Q Network with new members including Quantum Machines and reinforced its cloud-based quantum computing offerings. Rigetti advanced hybrid workflows through its pyQuil toolkit and Rigetti platform. D-Wave opened specialized access via Leap cloud service for real-time quantum annealing. Together, these platforms made experimentation accessible to everyone from researchers to enterprises testing near-term algorithms on hardware.
Russia committed approximately $790 million to quantum research and development. India announced a $1.12 billion national mission to build domestic capabilities. In the United States, the FY2021 budget proposed doubling investments in quantum information science, DARPA explored a quantum computing consortium, and the Department of Energy advanced plans for national quantum research centers. Quantum technology’s role in national security and economic competitiveness was enhanced by such commitments.
Breakthroughs included scalable silicon-based qubits, on-chip entanglement demonstrations, and novel control via soundwaves. Researchers reported progress in strontium and calcium ion qubits, antiferromagnetic topological materials, and chip-based quantum key distribution. Honeywell previewed high-fidelity systems, while Intel shared cryogenic control advances with Horse Ridge. The results steadily improved qubit coherence and gate fidelity critical for future scaling.
NIST progressed its post-quantum cryptography standardization, evaluating round-two algorithms. Commercial solutions emerged from IronCAP, ISARA, and new quantum-safe products in India. Discussions highlighted migration urgency for finance, government, and critical infrastructure. Scotiabank and JPMorgan understood the threat and actively sought defenses.
Advances included long-distance entangled quantum memories, device-independent QKD, and proposals to reuse legacy fiber networks for the quantum internet. Chinese teams demonstrated portable quantum systems, while U.S. efforts advanced quantum networks in Illinois. These steps moved secure quantum communication closer to real-world deployment.
Q1 2020 established quantum computing as a strategic planning concern vice a purely experimental field. Cloud platforms provided hands-on access, national governments committed capital, and post-quantum cryptography began aligning with real institutional timelines. The quarter’s significance lay less in technical leaps than in organizational posture. Quantum capabilities were increasingly treated as assets to be developed methodically, governed deliberately, and integrated into long-term technology roadmaps.
Q2 2020 unfolded as a stress test for the quantum ecosystem: research and commercialization kept moving, but with an unmistakable “pandemic-era” reshuffling of priorities toward resilience, remote access, and security planning. The quarter highlighted a steady push to make quantum resources more usable—via cloud platforms, programming tools, and clearer enterprise use cases—while core hardware and materials research continued to probe the limits of superconductors, photonics, and exotic states of matter. Scalable fault-tolerant systems remained future-oriented, but readiness advanced meaningfully in access models, workforce signals, and quantum-safe thinking.
As the world adjusted to COVID-era constraints, quantum commentary and community messaging increasingly framed continuity as a strategic requirement rather than a temporary workaround. Several narratives explicitly connected the pandemic to research operations and industrial planning, including reflections on coronavirus and quantum, as the sector maintained momentum through distributed teams and cloud-first access. That same operational shift reinforced the value of practical orchestration layers and remote experimentation, pushing the ecosystem to treat reproducibility, tooling maturity, and accessible platforms as first-order priorities rather than “nice-to-haves.”
Q2 delivered a dense stream of foundational physics and device-direction work that continues to define what hardware can plausibly scale into. On superconductivity, researchers reported broken time-reversal symmetry, while other teams explored topological phenomena and signatures tied to Majorana physics. Notably, MIT’s coverage of a Majorana fermion metal and related experimental lines appeared in peer-reviewed texts including Physical Review Letters and Nature Communications. Photonics and sensing capabilities also advanced, for example, a single-photon camera and proposals for quantum-network enabling components. This echoed the quarter’s broader theme showing hardware progress as intertwined with systems engineering choices about how devices will connect, be controlled, and be used.
The quarter’s commercial gravity was pulled strongly toward accessibility by landing quantum resources in the hands of developers and enterprises in more structured ways. IBM continued expanding its platform presence through the IBM Quantum network and broader IBM quantum computing ecosystem positioning. Amazon’s AWS Braket reinforced the idea that quantum experimentation would increasingly be consumed as a managed service. This “usability stack” also gained momentum via new language and workflow efforts. Developer-facing pathways were highlighted by TechCrunch’s coverage of Silq language and Quantum Machines’ QUA language, alongside practical tool ecosystems such as Qiskit and its circuit library. The throughline was clear. Q2 emphasized not only making qubits better, but making quantum systems easier to program, schedule, and integrate into hybrid workflows.
Q2’s business narrative blended enterprise curiosity with capital commitments, suggesting “waiting for perfect hardware” was no longer the dominant stance for many organizations. Industry coverage pointed to enterprise-facing exploration ranging from general market assessments to sector-specific planning. Examples were from the organizations preparing “just in case,” including JPMorgan quantum planning, and a broader enterprise framing around near-term goals in pieces like business objectives. Financing activity reinforced this direction. Bloomberg highlighted a major raise in startup raises $215 million, hardware ecosystem investments and adjacent stack funding were reflected in announcements from Zapata’s investment and SEEQC’s over $11 million funding. The quarter’s implications leaned toward ecosystem hardening. More money and more enterprise attention increased pressure for credible roadmaps, benchmarks, and integration plans.
Quantum networking and security threads strengthened in Q2 through both research results and procurement-style thinking. Work on communications efficiency, such as UChicago’s report of resource allocation improving energy efficiency in quantum communication, sat alongside the steady maturation of quantum randomness hardware, including ID Quantique’s launch of an ultra-small QRNG chip. In parallel, security discourse broadened. NIST’s draft framing on post-quantum cryptography signaled migration planning and risk framing were becoming practical governance topics, not just theoretical concerns. Taken together, Q2 suggested a more integrated view of “quantum readiness”. Demonstrated not only by computing power, but communications infrastructure, trusted randomness, and realistic cryptographic transition planning.
Q2 2020 demonstrated the quantum ecosystem’s resilience under global disruption, reinforcing quantum progress no longer depended on centralized labs alone. Remote access, cloud orchestration, and software maturity proved essential for continuity, while hardware and materials research continued to surface fundamental constraints. The quarter demonstrated the need for usability, integration, and security planning as core enablers of sustained quantum development.
Q3 2020 marked a visible shift from “quantum curiosity” toward institutionalized programs, security planning, and early enterprise proofs that could survive budget scrutiny. Scalable fault-tolerant systems remained out of reach, the quarter showed meaningful readiness gains in networking roadmaps, cloud access, and post-quantum migration work. All of this was alongside steady progress in device physics and materials science. The throughline was practical given governments funded enablers, vendors sharpened platforms, and security stakeholders started treating quantum risk as a planning horizon vice than an abstract debate.
Public-sector momentum became harder to ignore as major funding and program announcements framed quantum as strategic infrastructure. The U.S. Air Force moved to accelerate “quantum-enabling technologies”and the Department of Energy expanded the upstream research pipeline through DOE awards for Energy Frontier Research Centers. In the UK, a new tranche of £70 million funding reinforced long-term industrial positioning, and in the U.S. broader R&D posture was signaled by the White House’s framing of investing $1 billion in research institutes. These moves collectively suggested a maturing policy stance, not a single “moonshot,” but a portfolio approach spanning materials, devices, workforce, and deployment-adjacent infrastructure.
Quantum networking narratives in Q3 became less theoretical and more systems-oriented, especially where hybrid architectures and space links could extend reach. Scientific American highlighted a hybrid quantum networking demonstration, while the Department of Energy elevated a roadmap-level intent through its blueprint of a quantum internet. At the same time, the space dimension sharpened. The National University of Singapore (NUS) pointed to nanosatellite potential with SpooQy-1 showing promise for quantum networks. Security-driven space communications appeared in coverage of Honeywell (Loft Orbital) efforts around quantum security alongside enabling spacecraft platforms such as Blue Canyon selected. Underneath the headlines, the quarter’s networking story was about architectural realism: linking near-term hybrid approaches with longer-term national roadmaps and international participation signals, including Estonia’s EU cooperation framework.
Device progress in Q3 carried a strong “engineering meets physics” flavor—advancing qubit concepts while confronting the constraints that will define scale. MIT detailed efforts on scaling a quantum chip, while QuTech reported a milestone in semiconductor qubits with single-hole qubit. On the reliability front, the quarter also elevated error correction from an academic aspiration into a concrete experimental direction, with Physics World covering quantum error correction achieved using oscillator grid states. At the same time, limits and friction points were increasingly explicit: MIT reported cosmic rays limited quantum computing, a reminder that scaling is as much about mitigating environmental and materials realities as it is about increasing qubit counts. Complementing the hardware arc, the University of Oxford highlighted how automation could reduce tuning burden through AI automatic tuning, tying software intelligence to hardware operability.
Q3 continued the transition of post-quantum cryptography from “future threat” framing to tangible planning artifacts with security teams able to map to programs and controls. Security Ledger described how NIST is approaching the quantum era, while NIST’s own publication track anchored implementation-oriented work through NISTIR 8309 and their broader post-quantum cryptography program context. Industry-facing guidance and risk narratives filled in the operational middle, including Sectigo’s quantum-safe cryptography positioning, SecurityWeek’s promise and threat framing, and critical-infrastructure minded discussions over critical infrastructure and quantum. The combined signal was urgency with structure. Organizations increasingly had named artifacts, reference documents, and migration conversations attachable to budgets and timelines.
The enterprise thread in Q3 was less about grand predictions and more about proof-of-concept credibility, sector specificity, and capital moving toward practical stacks. Atos emphasized applied quantum algorithms for industrial challenges, including a partnership framing around tackle decarbonization, while financial services experimentation surfaced through BBVA’s quantum computing proof-of-concepts. Investment activity reinforced the idea of “useful quantum” being built through platforms and partnerships. Rigetti’s momentum was evidenced by a Series C round. Vendor ecosystem narratives continued around cloud and services, including IBM’s global posture through IBM Quantum and regional engagement noted in IBM Japan’s coverage. The practical takeaway was that enterprises were beginning to distinguish “demo value” from “portfolio value,” aligning experiments with business functions rather than generic curiosity.
Q3 2020 marked the point at which quantum initiatives began surviving institutional budgetary, operational, and strategic scrutiny. Government funding diversified across enabling layers, enterprises shifted toward sector-specific proofs of value, and post-quantum security work gained reference documents which could anchor real programs. The quarter’s enduring message was readiness through structure. Platforms, standards, and planning artifacts mattered as much as scientific ambition.
Q4 2020 closed the year with a more institutional tone. Quantum work was increasingly framed as infrastructure—technical, industrial, and security—rather than an isolated R&D pursuit. Scalable fault-tolerant machines remained future-facing. However, the quarter delivered signals of readiness across the “stack,” from control electronics and cloud platforms to quantum networking pilots and post-quantum migration guidance. Governments and major enterprises continued to operationalize quantum planning. Research results and engineering demonstrations sharpened the sense for the ecosystem’s bottlenecks becoming better understood—and therefore more tractable.
Q4 reinforced the idea that quantum networking was moving into deployment-adjacent experimentation, particularly in telecom and industrial contexts. In the UK, a major operational signal arrived with BT and Toshiba installing the UK’s first quantum-secure industrial network, illustrating how quantum security can be integrated into real production environments rather than confined to lab links. Media and industry attention broadened around telecom validation. Coverage included BT’s plans to test 5G quantum security. Engineering narratives also treated quantum memory and repeaters as milestones on the path to a usable quantum internet, such as the IEEE Spectrum note on a quantum memory efficiency. These developments echoed the quarter’s larger theme of networking and security use cases starting to appear as systems integration problems with measurable progress markers.
The post-quantum security story in Q4 continued growing and becoming more operational; i.e. less debate, more planning artifacts and governance language. Coverage of NIST’s approach to “securing the quantum era” continued to circulate: Security Ledger’s discussion of how NIST is securing the transition NIST also issued implementation-oriented guidance in the form of NIST SP 800-208, reinforcing post-quantum readiness was becoming something organizations could map to engineering and validation processes rather than only strategy decks. Industry and practitioner perspectives emphasized migration pathways and crypto-agility, including ISACA’s framing on simplifying the transition and vendor guidance exemplified in DigiCert’s view on securing quantum computing. Even in policy and government-tech circles, the quarter’s tone suggested quantum risk was increasingly treated as a “when, not if” planning category. The risk was reflected in Nextgov’s argument for protecting government data.
Q4’s hardware narrative emphasized the enabling layer between qubits and systems. Control, packaging, cryogenics, and the compute stack were the required hardware to turn devices into operational platforms. Intel highlighted this direction through coverage of a control-focused effort in which its latest chip manipulates qubits, aligning with the broader reality that scaling requires robust, repeatable control more than isolated demonstrations. Honeywell signaled continued platform advancement through its release of a next-generation system. Meanwhile cold-atom infrastructure narratives continued to position scalable neutral-atom and ultracold platforms as commercially accessible, including ColdQuanta’s cloud messaging around AlbertCloud. At the same time, the quarter continued to remind stakeholders that practical quantum is tightly coupled to cryogenic and lab infrastructure, reinforced by Oxford Instruments’ launch of the Proteox5MK.
A notable Q4 storyline was the maturing conversation around the full stack. The tools, compilers, orchestration, benchmarking, and cloud services were discussed as critical determinants for progress. EE Times explicitly framed this in its discussion of the quantum computing stack, reflecting a broader recognition of ‘more qubits’ is not the only constraint on adoption. QCI pushed platform messaging with a release describing Mukai 3.0, Microsoft continued to sharpen developer narratives, and tooling pathways through work such as the Q# blog’s introduction of quantum intermediate representation. IBM’s research-facing communication also emphasized workflow realism and near-term value framing. This is apparent in its note on near real-time quantum compute and its exploration of quantum advantage in a finance-relevant context. Together, these items signaled a continued turn toward making quantum systems usable by non-specialists through layered abstraction and measurable performance narratives.
Q4 saw visible strengthening of national ecosystems through consortia formation, center funding, and collaboration structures that connect academia, industry, and government. Europe’s NEASQC initiative formalized its posture through the consortium release, including the NEASQC press release and Atos’ role as coordinator described in its statement on coordinating NEASQC. In the U.S., the emergence of national centers and related ecosystem coordination continued to shape the narrative; DOE’s focus on centers was highlighted through its framing that new centers lead the way toward a quantum future. Workforce and training signals remained present as well. UChicago updated its selection of a new cohort for their quantum training program, and the NSA stepped into collaborative infrastructure through its announcement of a qubit collaboratory. The overall picture was a more structured ecosystem with fewer isolated projects and more multi-institution programs built to persist.
Quantum computing closed Q4 2020 firmly framed as infrastructure in the making. Networking pilots, control-layer advances, and programmatic post-quantum guidance showed how research outputs translate into deployable systems and governance mechanisms. Aside from resolving the challenge of scale, the quarter clarified the bottlenecks of control, integration, and security. The quarter set a more realistic and durable foundation for the next phase of quantum deployment and adoption.
Throughout 2019, quantum computing advanced from experimental promise toward structured deployment. Commercial platforms, cloud access, and national strategies emerged alongside urgent post-quantum security planning. While
The final quarter of 2018 demonstrated the dual reality of quantum computing. While fault-tolerant systems remained distant, policy frameworks, post-quantum cryptography, and hybrid platforms advanced.
The third quarter of 2018 reflected growing practical preparedness in quantum computing, as post-quantum cryptography moved into commercial partnerships and national strategies gained funding and