The quantum revolution is accelerating from the theoretical to the tangible, with near-term milestones such as post-quantum cryptography migration and quantum networking creating a governance tipping point beyond which quantum’s societal impacts will be difficult to remediate.
While individual states and blocs are beginning to formulate strategies such as the proposed EU Quantum Act, experts warn that the technology’s global nature, dual-use implications and asymmetric capability distribution demand a coherent international governance framework that prioritizes standards and security-sufficient openness rather than either laissez-faire neglect or reflexive restriction.
In this policy brief, Mauritz Kop and Tracey Forrest build on established foundational principles for responsible quantum innovation to argue for a multi-layered global strategy. By examining high-stakes use cases as thought experiments involving quantum technologies — from quantum-enhanced diagnostics and clocks to quantum networks and simulation — the authors present legal and regulatory stress tests in which existing governance tools can fail when quantum capabilities create abrupt shifts in feasible computation, measurement and security baselines, and when complex quantum–classical (and increasingly AI-enabled) software stacks strain conventional oversight.
Their analysis culminates in an exploration of the critical nexus between intellectual property, national security and global supply chains, proposing a multi-pronged path forward.
