The research, weapons and defense departments of the main powers are a black hole. We cannot know what is on the other side, unless we They are the ones who allow us to take a look. It makes sense, since announcing a technology hastily would alert the rival. In this context, China has just taken a step in the war of the future: quantum war.
We are very used to talking about traditional computing, and that of cyberwar It is an easy concept to understand. Hacker attacks on critical enemy systemsforms of make your troops invisible to rival radars or cyberespionage are concepts that have become everyday in current conflicts. And the future lies in quantum weapons.
The quantum computing It’s not an incremental improvement in a computer’s processing speed: it’s a breakthrough. It is a paradigm shift and that is why researchers are developing these quantum computers which, in essence, allow solve complex operations in much less time than a classic computer. It is not easy, since although important steps have been taken in recent years, it still has challenges to solve so that your results are optimal.
In a war and security context, and in a nutshell, this translates into one thing: if it takes a conventional computer hours or days to breach an enemy’s security, a quantum computer It would take minutes or seconds. And China not only says They are not only developing a dozen quantum warfare tools, but are already testing them in combat.
“To design a good weapon, you have to think about what the war of the future will be like”
As they point out in South China Morning Postthe People’s Liberation Army confirmed through the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily that they have more than ten experimental quantum cyber warfare tools in development. As we say, some of them are being “tested in frontline missions”, ‘capturing’ intelligence that can be used in the future.
This is a project led by the National University of Defense Technology and, according to the report, focuses on three areas:
- Cloud computing.
- Artificial intelligence.
- Quantum technology.
The fact that they are already testing some of these systems implies that they have left the theoretical framework, and the Army points out that “speed” is the main advantage that these tools offer.
It is not just about making smarter weapons, but about giving more tools to those who analyze the situation. For example, quantum computing allows process large amounts of battlefield data in a matter of seconds. This implies that analysts can help make decisions practically in real time.
They can also help in terms of both cybersecurity and cyberespionage, better protecting themselves with artificial intelligence systems that rewrite their code in real time – something we already see with malware such as PromtLock– or busting enemy crypto security faster.
Related to this, they can help make GPS navigation systems more resistant to jamming or spoofing attacks. Or even perform navigation and positioning based on quantum sensors without depending on vulnerable infrastructure such as GPS or Starlink.
It looks kind of steampunk, but this is part of a quantum computer
Really, the applications seem limitless when we consider what has already been achieved with classical computing. These technologies also have potential to improve defenses aerial and detection of stealth aircraft, something in which United States with its F-35 and China with its J-36 They are investing a fortune.
As they have commented in the magazine, the development of this technology responds to the need to think “what the war of the future will be like”, and how the war in Ukraine and Russian cyberattacks are showing uscyberwar will be the protagonist.
They are, in short, tools that allow a conflict to end before the rival knows that it has started. It is the same philosophy that led to the development of the American F-35 fighter and a form of asymmetric warfare.
Ok, very good, but what time advantage are we talking about? An example is the Google Sycamorea quantum computer that performed a calculation that would have taken a classical supercomputer 10,000 years in just… 200 seconds. In 2020, China already complete in another 200 seconds an operation that would have taken a supercomputer more than 2.5 billion years.
Are they the only ones? Not even close.
For Putin, the race for quantum computing is like the nuclear race after the end of World War II
If there are hackers with a good reputation, they are the Russians, and the country is already testing prototypes such as quantum supercomputers Lomonosov Moscow State University with 72 qubits and another 70 qubits of the Lebedev Institute. Europe is also immersed in the era of the ‘Transition to Post-Quantum Cryptography’ in matters of defense of critical infrastructure (energy, finance, health or telecommunications) with the objective of having operational systems by 2030.
Japan is also in itand the United States has high the budget for research and development of quantum systems from 141,000 million in 2024 to more than 179,000 million dollars (part of a total of almost a billion engaged for general defense). They have an advantage: IBM and Google are leaders in quantum systems maturitybut China is estimated to be closing the gap.
And they must be confident in the possibilities of their systems if they already talk about them openly.
CCTV images (via X),
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