Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe below to never miss a qubit. 👇️

FROM THE EDITOR.

I’ll take a moment to spotlight some of the interesting academic and enterprise developments in quantum over the week — there were more than a few.

Just out of the sheer amazing science of it all, I’ll call out the University of Oxford, which is always producing cutting-edge research. This week, a team of scientists reported engineering quantum mechanical behavior directly into proteins. The team developed proteins that can respond to magnetic fields and radio waves under light, blending quantum effects with biology.

This work made it to Nature and the team suggests the work paves the way for innovative biotech tools, like advanced in vivo imaging or quantum-enhanced sensors in living systems.

Imagine that!

IBM delivered a timely — we’ll call it an alert, but it was also a warning — with its "The Enterprise in 2030" study. Surveying over 2,000 global executives, the report highlights quantum's expected industry transformation by decade's end, yet warns most organizations lag in preparation—despite heavy AI focus.

The underlying message is a familiar one at The Quantum Insider: It’s important for leaders to build quantum readiness now to avoid strategic vulnerabilities later.

More on this below.

Have a great weekend and thanks for reading!

PS: Calling your attention to the 01Quantum webinar on securing AI inference against adversarial threats.

— Matt, Chief Content Officer at The Quantum Insider

INSIDER BRIEF.

• UPM and Q*Bird Deploy Spain’s First Multi-Node MDI-QKD Network

• D-Wave Finalizes Acquisition of Quantum Circuits

• Rigetti Announces Order For 108-Qubit Quantum Computer From India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing

• Researchers Show Today’s Quantum Computers Can Reliably Study Complex Physics

• The Quantum Economy Is No Longer A Metaphor

• SpinQ Closes Series C Round as Chinese Quantum Firm Pushes Commercial Expansion

• 01Quantum to Host Webinar on Securing AI Inference Against Adversarial Threats in 2026

• Oxford Team Engineer Quantum-enabled Proteins, Opening a New Frontier in Biotechnology

  ANALYST NOTES.

The Noteworthy & Nuanced

Wordplay, wordplay everywhere! QUDORA Technologies has introduced Qamelion, a quantum computing emulator for testing algorithms under realistic, hardware-like noise conditions. Some features include adjustable noise models, hybrid classical quantum execution, and compatibility with OpenQASM, Qiskit, and QIR, enabling thorough evaluation of near-term and future algorithms. Available through QUDORA’s cloud with a free trial, Qamelion will also be offered in Japan through Fixstars Amplify.

“Pan-European Quantum Corridor” - sounds fancy, doesn’t it? SEALSQ has expanded its Quantum Investment Fund from $35M to more than $100M. All in order to create the aforementioned corridor and advance Europe’s post-quantum security and sovereign quantum computing ambitions. The company is deploying capital across PQC hardware, secure satellites, blockchain identity systems, QKD, and quantum-ready semiconductors in multiple countries.

Illinois is pumping out support for quantum startups. The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) and Silicon Catalyst have formed a partnership that will give companies in Silicon Catalyst’s accelerator access to lab space, specialized equipment, cryogenic infrastructure, and the National Quantum Facility. This is all facilitated by the Illinois EDC, as part of a strategy to attract and retain quantum firms in the state. — Alan Kanapin, Analyst at The Quantum Insider

The Research Rundown

Check out this week’s handpicked quantum research. These are studies headed for real-world impact: improving accuracy, reducing latency, using fewer resources, or solving problems that classical methods struggle with. These are early developments, but they hint at where quantum might earn its keep.

• Researchers from Cadi Ayyad University and Aix-Marseille University propose a hybrid quantum–classical machine learning framework that predicts river water quality and classifies pollution levels using a reduced set of environmental measurements, validated on real river data from India.

• A team from the Jaypee Institute of Information Technology present an attention-assisted quantum convolutional neural network that fuses SAR and optical imagery to generate change maps for flood detection, improving sensitivity to subtle spatial and temporal features.

• Researchers from Southern Methodist University and SUNY Binghamton introduce a quantum machine learning approach for detecting false data injection attacks in power grids by using quantum kernel embedding to make subtle attack patterns more separable.
  
  — Cierra Choucair, Journalist & Analyst at The Quantum Insider

Want more research insights? Get them delivered straight to your inbox Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with The Daily Qubit. Subscribe below or use the link to update preferences at the end of this email. 👇️

01Quantum will host a live strategic briefing on February 26, 2026, focused on securing AI inference against adversarial threats, as part of the 2026 Year of Quantum Security, in partnership with The Quantum Insider. The 60-minute session will examine how government and enterprise organizations can protect AI prompts, models, and outputs from extraction, inversion, and long-term cryptographic risk using post-quantum security approaches that integrate into existing systems without disruption. Led by Andrew Cheung (01Quantum) and Brian Lenahan (Quantum Strategy Institute), the briefing targets decision-makers navigating emerging compliance, procurement, and trust requirements as AI deployment outpaces current security models.

INSIDER SPOTLIGHT: IBM Study Finds Quantum Computing Is Coming, But Enterprises Aren’t Ready

➡️ IBM warned that while most enterprises expect quantum computing to reshape industry by 2030, few are actively preparing to use it, creating what the company describes as a growing strategic readiness gap.
➡️ The warning appears in The Enterprise in 2030, a study from IBM’s Institute for Business Value based on a survey of more than 2,000 senior executives across 33 geographies and 23 industries conducted in late 2025.
➡️ According to the report, 59% of executives believe quantum-enabled AI will transform their industry by the end of the decade, yet only 27% expect their organizations to deploy quantum computing in any capacity by that time.
➡️ IBM frames the disconnect not as a timing issue but as a strategic miscalculation, cautioning that enterprises focused narrowly on AI may overlook deeper shifts in how computation itself is evolving.
➡️ The study positions quantum computing as a complementary accelerator within hybrid workflows — alongside classical computing and AI — rather than as a standalone replacement technology.

Analyst Commentary

IBM’s findings sharpen a familiar but deeply contrarian attitude held by executives in enterprise technology planning. First, there’s a widespread belief in quantum computing’s long-term impact. However, these same organizations do not feel the need to engage in any real action. The report does not argue that quantum computing is ready for broad deployment. What it suggests, instead, is that the cost of inaction may be underestimated, particularly as quantum capabilities begin to influence markets indirectly rather than through visible, standalone systems.

The readiness gap IBM describes diverges from past technology transitions. In areas such as cloud computing and cybersecurity, executive expectations and organizational preparation tended to advance in parallel. With quantum, belief has outpaced planning. That imbalance suggests many enterprises still view quantum computing as a research topic rather than as an architectural consideration tied to future competitiveness and resilience.

The IBM report makes a lot of sense because it frames quantum computing’s role as incremental rather than disruptive. In other words, they don’t seem to be in arm-flailing mode to get attention for quantum. In fact, the report repeatedly emphasizes hybrid workflows, where quantum systems act as accelerators for narrow classes of problems such as optimization, simulation and probabilistic analysis — tasks that increasingly strain even advanced classical and AI-driven systems. In that sense, quantum is presented less as a breakthrough technology than as an extension of the computing stack.

The study’s enterprise examples reinforce that framing. IBM highlights early deployments in sectors such as life sciences and finance, where organizations are using quantum tools to explore problems already difficult for classical methods. The significance is not quantum advantage over classical systems, but parity on workloads previously considered impractical for quantum hardware. That signals a shift from academic experimentation toward constrained, real-world use cases.

The report also challenges the assumption that aggressive AI investment alone constitutes sufficient preparation for the next decade. As AI models grow larger and more specialized, they generate increasingly complex optimization and simulation demands. IBM’s analysis suggests that quantum computing may become relevant precisely because AI succeeds — not as a competitor, but as a supporting technology embedded inside AI-driven workflows.

IBM’s guidance stops short of urging immediate hardware adoption. Instead, it calls for enterprises to build internal literacy, partnerships and governance structures now, treating quantum computing as a strategic variable rather than a distant inevitability. The analogy to early cloud adoption is deliberate: organizations that prepared early gained flexibility, even before cloud became ubiquitous.

To bring the rhetoric down a bit, IBM’s report does not forecast a single moment when quantum computing “arrives.” It outlines a gradual integration process in which quantum capabilities surface unevenly across industries and value chains. The risk for enterprises is not missing an early advantage, but discovering too late that quantum effects are already embedded in supply chains, financial systems and security infrastructure.

DATA SPOTLIGHT.

PacketLight Networks and NEC demonstrated quantum key distribution over a 400G dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM) network using a dual-fiber setup. They integrated NEC’s QKD system with PacketLight’s PL-4000M 600G Muxponder, achieving 100% data throughput and low latency, verified via a 100GbE tester. The QKD ran over a dedicated parallel fiber, maintaining quantum signal integrity. The result: a cost-effective, scalable quantum-safe model with zero performance tradeoffs on existing high-capacity infrastructure.

INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS.

📚️ Andhra Pradesh has enrolled 55,000 university students in a single NPTEL quantum computing course, making it one of the largest state-led quantum workforce training efforts to date. The program emphasizes hands-on skills in quantum algorithms, error correction, and Qiskit programming.

🤝 Horizon Quantum Computing and Alice & Bob have formed a strategic collaboration to integrate fault-tolerant hardware emulation with quantum software infrastructure. The partnership connects Alice & Bob’s emulators with Horizon’s Triple Alpha platform to support compilation, resource analysis, and application development.

🤝 Quobly and TNO have partnered to accelerate industrial-scale silicon quantum hardware by combining CMOS-compatible spin qubit chips with advanced materials and cryogenic characterization.

🖥️ Rigetti Computing has received an $8.4 million order to deliver a 108-qubit, on-premises quantum computer to India’s Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Bengaluru, with deployment planned for the second half of 2026.

✅ D-Wave has completed its acquisition of Quantum Circuits, adding error-corrected, superconducting gate-model hardware to its portfolio. The move positions D-Wave as a dual-platform company combining commercial annealing systems with gate-model quantum computing on a single roadmap.

🇪🇸 Universidad Politécnica de Madrid and Q*Bird have deployed Spain’s first operational multi-node MDI-QKD network across high-security government sites, enabling detector-secure quantum key distribution over metropolitan-scale fiber links without trusted nodes.

💡 Lightwave Logic and QPICs have signed an MOU to accelerate commercialization of photonic quantum circuits by developing process design kits based on electro-optic polymer technology. The collaboration supports silicon-compatible quantum photonics manufacturing and advances QPICs’ plan to establish a quantum photonics foundry in Colorado under the U.S. Quantum Tech Hub initiative.

💰️ SpinQ Technology has completed a Series C funding round raising hundreds of millions of RMB to advance core quantum technologies, expand industrial partnerships, and accelerate commercialization and global growth.

⚡️ Photonics for Quantum is a Europe-wide pilot launching in 2026 to move quantum photonic chips from lab prototypes to industrial-scale production through standards, design kits, and shared manufacturing infrastructure. Backed by €25 million in EU funding plus matching national support, the 29-partner consortium aims to bring multiple photonic quantum platforms to near-market readiness for sensing, computing, and secure communications.

🛗 Alice & Bob has proposed a new error-correction scheme called Elevator Codes that could reduce logical error rates by up to 10,000× on cat qubit systems while requiring roughly three times more qubits. The approach adds active bit-flip protection to existing repetition codes using a reusable logical ancilla.

🇸🇦 KAUST has launched the KAUST Quantum Foundry to enable reproducible, scalable fabrication of quantum hardware through shared cleanroom access and standardized processes. The phased initiative supports multiple quantum platforms and is designed to accelerate collaboration, technology transfer, and early-stage commercialization in Saudi Arabia.

🔐 Keyfactor and IBM Consulting have launched a joint solution that gives enterprises visibility, risk prioritization, and a structured path to modernize cryptography and prepare for post-quantum cryptography. The offering combines automated cryptographic discovery and lifecycle management with governance and delivery frameworks aligned to NIST, EU, and global PQC guidance.

🪙 Coinbase has formed an independent advisory board of quantum computing and cryptography experts to assess long-term quantum risks to blockchain security and provide public guidance to the crypto ecosystem.

💻️ ZenaTech is advancing plans to build a proprietary quantum computing hardware platform, with a five-qubit prototype expected to be operational in late 2026. The system is designed to support AI-driven defense and government applications by processing large, complex datasets from drone and autonomy programs across security, weather, wildfire, and traffic management use cases.

🔑 Arqit has launched Encryption Intelligence, a commercial platform that gives enterprises continuous visibility into their cryptographic assets to support structured, low-risk migration to post-quantum cryptography. The product focuses on discovery and risk prioritisation across hybrid environments and aligns with emerging regulatory guidance.

👩‍🔬 Microsoft has launched its 2026 Quantum Research Pioneers Program, inviting academic proposals on measurement-based approaches to topological quantum computing, with awards of up to $200,000. The initiative targets foundational work in measurement-based logic, error correction, simulation, and early fault-tolerant experiments, with applications opening in November 2025 and the program beginning in August 2026.

🤖 EdenCode has emerged from stealth with an AI-driven, real-time quantum error decoder that achieves sub-millisecond latency and 99.9% detection accuracy, aiming to make fault-tolerant quantum computing more practical.

✨ Microsoft is pivoting its quantum strategy toward software, upgrading its open-source Quantum Development Kit with AI-assisted tools, domain-specific libraries, and integrations that make quantum programming more accessible and scalable.

EVENTS.

Jan. 26-27 -- QuARC 2026, hosted by MIT’s Center for Quantum Engineering (CQE) in partnership with MIT’s Interdisciplinary Quantum Information Science and Engineering (iQuISE) student organization, will be held at the Omni Mount Washington resort in New Hampshire.

Jan. 27-28, 2026 -- Qubits 2026 D-Wave is bringing its annual user conference, Qubits, to Boca Raton, Florida. The event will be held at The Boca Raton resort.

Jan. 29 - Feb. 2, 2026 -- Isfahan University of Technology is hosting Quantum Frontiers in Science and Technology, a five-day, two-part program that integrates foundational education in quantum sensing with a research-focused conference on cutting-edge quantum technologies.

Feb. 18–20 — Quantum Days 2026, Canada’s flagship quantum science and technology conference, will take place at the Victoria Conference Centre in Victoria, British Columbia. Registration closes Feb. 4.

March 3-6 -- SIAM Conference on Parallel Processing for Scientific Computing (SIAM SC26), Berlin.

March 16-20 -- Quantum Resources will be held in Tokyo, Japan. The conference brings together leading experts and emerging voices in the field to explore the latest theoretical insights, operational applications, and future directions of quantum resource theories.

March 24 -- Quantum Security & Defence -- Taking place at the Palais des Congrès de Paris, this half-day event convenes industry, government, and research leaders to address quantum security and defence challenges, including quantum-secure communications, certification paths, and practical deployment strategies amid the rising Quantum-AI era.

March 24 -- Convergence Quantum II (CQII) hosted by The Convergence Center for Applied Quantum Computing at The Engine in Kendall Square, Cambridge, MA, defines the next generation of drug discovery through applied quantum use cases, biopharma insights and investor perspectives, 

April 6-8 -- International Conference on Quantum Communications, Networking, and Computing (QCNC 2026) -- Taking place in Kobe, Japan, this IEEE-hosted conference covers advances in quantum communications, networking, computing, cryptography, and related systems, featuring research presentations and industry discussions across key tracks in the field.

April 9–11 -- TQCEBT 2026 -- Hosted at CHRIST University’s Pune Lavasa Campus in India, this interdisciplinary event explores quantum computing advancements alongside emerging business technology applications, bringing together researchers, practitioners, and business leaders.

Apr 22–23 -- Mathematics & Physics Frontiers 2026 in Frankfurt, Germany is an international forum uniting mathematicians, physicists, engineers, data scientists, and technology innovators from across the globe to explore groundbreaking advances at the intersection of theory and application.

April 27-30 -- The Quantum Matter International Conference & Expo (QUANTUMatter2026) will take place at the Barceló Sants Hotel in Barcelona. The conference to foster the incubation of new ideas & collaborations at the forefront of quantum technologies, emerging quantum materials and novel generations of quantum communication protocols, quantum sensing and quantum simulation.

June 4-5 -- Q2B Tokyo 2026 will be held exclusively in-person and presented in Japanese and English, with real-time interpretation.

June 16 -- France Quantum -- the premier event showcasing the French Quantum ecosystem to the world.

June 22-24 -- IQT Nordics: Oslo, Norway

June 24-26 -- Quantum. Tech World: Boston, Mass

June 25-26 -- Quantum.Tech World -- Empowering Quantum, AI & HPC at Enterprise -- Scale, co-located with Quantum.Tech World will be held at Encore Boston Harbor in Boston, United States.

June 25-26 -- Quantum.Tech World -- Empowering Quantum, AI & HPC at Enterprise -- Scale, co-located with Quantum.Tech World will be held at Encore Boston Harbor in Boston, United States.

July 1-3 -- The 2026 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Control, Computing, and Learning (IEEE qCCL 2026) will take place from Wednesday to Friday, July 1-3, 2026