Former top spy Nick Warner sounds warning on quantum arms race in defence tech
Former ASIS chief Nick Warner says PsiQuantum's new partnership with US defence giant Lockheed Martin marks a critical escalation in the global quantum computing arms race.
The global quantum computing arms race has entered a new and urgent phase with a strategic collaboration between taxpayer-backed PsiQuantum and US defence giant Lockheed Martin, according to Australia’s former top spy.
Former Australian Secret Intelligence Service director-general Nick Warner – now a PsiQuantum board member – hailed the deal as “essential to the next era of aerospace and defence innovation”.
The comments from Mr Warner, one of the most respected figures in Australian security circles, signal the gravity of the partnership, which aims to develop and deploy quantum algorithms for real-world aerospace and defence applications for the US government and its allies.
His comments place the deal squarely within the domain of geopolitical competition and the burgeoning quantum arms race.
“This strategic collaboration between PsiQuantum and Lockheed Martin will accelerate the development and deployment of quantum computing applications, which will be essential to the next era of aerospace and defence innovation,” Mr Warner said.
“Quantum computing will enable breakthroughs across a broad range of fundamental capabilities across aerospace and defence, and it’s partnerships like this that will help realise this technology.”
The agreement formalises years of working collaboration and focuses on leveraging PsiQuantum’s work to build the world’s first utility-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
PsiQuantum, which wants to become the Google of the quantum computing era, swept the world’s venture capital market to secure $1.5bn from top private investors in September, including Nvidia, hoisting its valuation to $10.5bn.
It had previously received $1bn from the federal and Queensland governments to advance its technology.
The Lockheed Martin partnership will harness PsiQuantum’s secure software suite, Construct, as a platform for designing and optimising fault-tolerant quantum algorithms, a key step in translating theoretical power into fieldable military capabilities.
Valerie Browning, Lockheed Martin vice-president of research and technology, said the company was “laser-focused on identifying fieldable quantum technologies that strengthen the mission-focused capabilities we provide to our customers” as it advances its “21st-century security vision”.
Utility-scale quantum computing promises to unlock modelling capabilities currently impossible for even the most advanced supercomputers. The applications span critical defence areas, including quantum chemistry simulation and partial differential equations fundamental to modelling fluid dynamics, propulsion systems and heat transfer.
Mark Brunner, executive vice-president for PsiQuantum’s US public sector team, said: “Real, useful quantum computing will begin transforming the aerospace industry in a few short years, and now is the time for companies to prepare to seize the fullest potential of this technology.”
PsiQuantum, co-founded by Australian chief executive Jeremy O’Brien, recently cemented its status as a quantum powerhouse by securing more than $1.5bn in funding from top-tier institutional investors including BlackRock, Temasek, Baillie Gifford, Macquarie Capital and Nvidia’s venture capital arm, NVentures. This capital infusion has hoisted its valuation to $10.5bn.
The scale of its private backing notwithstanding, the firm is also the recipient of a controversial $1bn investment from the federal and Queensland governments to build Australia’s first quantum computer, a move the company said will allow it to break ground on utility-scale quantum computing sites in Brisbane and Chicago.
The taxpayer stake in a company of such high private calibre has drawn scrutiny, with the Queensland Liberal National Party government initially questioning the investment before deciding to proceed.
Professor O’Brien, whose company has set an ambitious goal to have the computer operational by the end of 2027, remains resolute in his conviction that the time for practical quantum computing is near. He argues that commercial applications require error correction and a technical strategy that can rapidly scale to millions of qubits.
“We defined what it takes from day one: it is a grand engineering challenge, not scientific experiments,” Professor O’Brien said. “Only building the real thing – million-qubit-scale, fault-tolerant machines – will unlock the promise of quantum computing.”
Originally published as Former top spy Nick Warner sounds warning on quantum arms race in defence tech
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