Zoe Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) explores two technologies that have people excited in both the positive and the negative senses, Note: Links have been removed,
There’s an old adage among tech journalists like me – you can either explain quantum accurately, or in a way that people understand, but you can’t do both [emphasis mine].
That’s because quantum mechanics – a strange and partly theoretical branch of physics – is a fiendishly difficult concept to get your head around.
It involves tiny particles behaving in weird ways. And this odd activity has opened up the potential of a whole new world of scientific super power.
Its mind-boggling complexity is probably a factor in why quantum has ended up with a lower profile than tech’s current rockstar – artificial intelligence (AI).
This is despite a steady stream of recent big quantum announcements from tech giants like Microsoft and Google among others.
Broadly speaking, we tend to think about quantum more commonly in the form of hardware like sensors and computers, while AI is more software-based – it requires hardware to operate.
Put them together, and we might one day have a new form of technology that’s more powerful than anything we have ever created… although the word “might” is doing some heavy lifting in that particular prediction, warns Brian Hopkins, VP and principal analyst in emerging tech at research firm Forresters.
“The potential is there, but the jury is still out,” he says.
“Initial experiments suggest promise, but they all indicate that we require much more powerful quantum computers and further innovative research to effectively apply quantum effects to AI.”
In terms of their value, both are lucrative. The quantum sector could be worth up to $97bn (£74bn) by 2035, according to market research group McKinsey.
Meanwhile, AI’s value is forecast in the trillions. But they both live under the shadow of hype and the bursting of bubbles.
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Nicely done Ms. Kleinman. It took me to long to see it but thank you for applying the uncertainty principle to science communication “… you can either explain quantum accurately, or in a way that people understand, but you can’t do both.”
Quantum bling
This passage describing a quantum computer was compelling since I have never seen one before, from Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article, Note: A link has been removed,
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Quantum and AI have one more thing in common – errors. While we are largely familiar now with the “hallucinations” of generative AI tools, quantum is plagued by a different kind of error.
These are caused because the state in which the particles have to operate is so fragile. The slightest change to the environment, including light and noise, can disrupt them.
It’s tricky to sustain such an environment. This week Elon Musk suggested on X that quantum computing would run best on the “permanently shadowed craters of the moon”.
Quantum computers don’t look anything like a traditional machines. There is no design blueprint, but they are currently very big.
They exist in laboratories, and the most commonly adopted format seems to include a kind of jellyfish-inspired shape.[emphasis mine].
They require extremely cold temperatures and lasers. It’s not the sort of thing you’re likely to have in your home, let alone in your pocket.
They’re also a bit bling – researchers have found that using synthetic diamonds [emphasis mine] to create qubits, which are the building blocks of quantum computers, enables them to work much closer to room temperature.
The luxury jeweller De Beers [emphasis mine] has a subsidiary company called Element Six, which claims to have launched the world’s first general-purpose quantum-grade diamond in 2020. And it has worked with Amazon Web Services on optimising artificial diamonds for future networks of quantum machines.
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Quantum could be good for us
Kleinman reviews some of the quantum computing promises, from her November 5, 2025 article, Note: A link has been removed,
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“The area of quantum computing is, in my mind, when you look at the applications, as big if not bigger than AI.”
Prof Sir Peter Knight is one of the UK’s top quantum experts. “Things that could take the age of the universe to calculate, even on the most powerful supercomputer, could be performed probably in seconds,” he told Dr Dr [sic]Jim Al-Khalili on BBC Radio 4’s The Life Scientific.
So what exactly are these gigantic, life-changing things that the machines might do once they’re ready?
As with AI, there’s a lot of quantum research directed towards improving healthcare.
Quantum computers could one day be able to effortlessly churn through endless combinations of molecules to come up with new drugs and medications – a process that currently takes years and years using classical computers.
To give you an idea of that scale – in December 2024, Google unveiled a new quantum chip called Willow, which it claimed could take five minutes to solve a problem that would currently take the world’s fastest super computers 10 septillion years – or 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years – to complete.
Hazra [Rajeeb Hazra, the boss of Quantinuum] says this could pave the way for personalised medication, where instead of getting a standard prescription, you get a specific drug tailormade for your individual body, that’s most likely to work for you.
And that applies to wider chemical processes too, such as new ways to produce fertilizers more efficiently, potentially a huge boost for global farmers.
Quantum sensors, which use the principles of quantum mechanics to measure things incredibly precisely, already exist and are found in atomic clocks.
In 2019, scientists at Nottingham University put them in a prototype device the size of a bike helmet, and used them in a new system to conduct non-intrusive brain scans on children with conditions such as epilepsy.
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Trouble ahead?
Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article examines one of the potential problems,
It is widely accepted that current forms of encryption – the way in which we store both personal data and official secrets – will one day be busted by quantum technology being able to churn through every single possible combination in record time, until the data becomes unscrambled.
Nations are known to be already stealing encrypted data from each other with a view to being able to decode it one day.
“It’s called harvest now, decrypt later,” says Prof Alan Woodward, a cybersecurity expert from Surrey University [University of Surrey].
“The theory of how to break current forms of public key encryption await a truly operational quantum computer,” he adds.
“The threat is so high that it’s assumed everyone needs to introduce quantum-resistant encryption now.”
The moment a such a computer exists is sometimes referred to as Q-day. Estimates of when it might arrive vary, but Brian Hopkins at Forrester says it could be soon – around the year 2030.
Companies like Apple and the secure messaging platform Signal have already rolled out what they believe to be post-quantum encryption keys, but they cannot be applied retrospectively to current data encrypted in the traditional way.
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If you have time, I recommend reading Kleinman’s November 5, 2025 article in its entirety.
What about our current level of privacy?
Valerie Fortney’s February 26, 2026 article for the National Post, “It’s the end of personal privacy. ‘There’s nowhere to hide anymore'”
By the time the Class of 2026 convenes this spring, the world will already know all sorts of personal details about these mostly 25-and-under university and college grads, things no one would have even thought to ask about the generations that preceded them.
Parents began trumpeting their arrivals on social media beginning in 2004, with baby steps and kindergarten performances chronicled on Facebook and, later, Instagram. Security cameras captured their first toddle into a grocery store. Today, they, and the rest of us, can be photographed and videoed without consent or even knowledge, from any one of the more than 12 million CCTV cameras or 30 million smartphones in use in Canada.
Some were introduced to computers and cellphones even before grade school, and it didn’t take long before they strapped on smart watches and logged on to social media. Even then, those convenient devices were collecting not just data but creating the start of full profiles — sometimes “anonymized,” sometimes not — for marketing and other purposes.
Even in the privacy of home, smart fridges were collecting data about the entire family’s eating routines, while smart TVs in living rooms “watched” them, tracking and cataloguing viewing habits. Today, Alexa listens in.
When those fresh-faced graduates apply for that first big job out of school, the odds are their prospective employers will have sifted through everything from social posts to search engines and even online gaming sites. And if you somehow stayed off-line and have no digital footprint at all? That could raise suspicion that you have something to hide.
In short, forget about personal privacy, everyone; it ain’t what it used to be. But do we still care? Should we?
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Fortney’s February 26, 2026 article is an estimated 21 minute read.
Between the current state of privacy and Q Day, the future doesn’t look that good for anyone who prizes their privacy.
