Building The Sovereign Quantum

AJAI CHOWDHRY, Chairman, Mission Governing Board of the National Quantum Mission of India, in an exclusive chat with Rohit Chintapali, shares a critical update on India’s rapid quantum advancements. Against a backdrop of shifting global dynamics and tightening tech export controls, Chowdhry outlines India’s product-driven blueprint to achieve absolute technological sovereignty across quantum computing, communication, and sensing. Excerpts

- Rohit Chintapali

Where does India stand in the quantum space in 2026?

A lot has changed over the last year. Due to geopolitical shifts, the world is becoming highly insular, and advanced technologies like quantum are being heavily guarded with impending export controls in the US and Europe. Because of this, the National Quantum Mission’s (NQM) core focus is the entirely indigenous development of products and subsystems to ensure absolute self-sufficiency.

What is India’s progress across different quantum computing modalities?

We are developing multiple platforms in parallel such as superconducting, photonics, semiconductors, and trapped ions because it is too early to tell which will ultimately dominate globally.

We started with a 7-qubit superconducting system. This year, we will deliver a 64-qubit product. While our initial target was 1,000 qubits in eight years, we are ahead of schedule: we expect to touch 300 qubits in one to two years, and reach 1,000 qubits in five years.

What milestones have been reached in quantum communication?

India is world-class in this segment. Last year, we had 500 kilometres of secure fibre network; this year, we hit 1,000 kilometres. We expect to achieve our 8-year target of 2,000 kilometres by the end of next year.

Why is accelerating this timeline so critical?

“Q-Day”, the point when quantum computers can crack existing cybersecurity algorithms, is arriving faster than anticipated, with threats now expected around 2029 or 2030 due to rapid progress in error correction and algorithms. In response, an NQM task force has created a step-by-step roadmap to make India quantum-secure.