In April 2025, on World Quantum Day, a Bengaluru-based startup called QpiAI unveiled what the government described as a milestone: India's first full-stack quantum computing system, the QpiAI-Indus, a 25-qubit superconducting quantum computer combining advanced quantum hardware, a Quantum-HPC software stack, and AI-assisted hybrid optimisation tools. The Quantum Insider The launch was genuine cause for acknowledgement. It was also an occasion for honest perspective.

IBM's quantum roadmap calls for the Kookaburra processor with 1,386 qubits in a multi-chip configuration, and the company has targeted a quantum-centric supercomputer with over 4,000 qubits. The Quantum Insider Google's Willow chip has 105 superconducting qubits and has achieved error correction below the surface code threshold, a landmark in fault-tolerant computing. Fujitsu and RIKEN unveiled a 256-qubit superconducting quantum computer in April 2025, with plans for a 1,000-qubit machine by 2026. SpinQ

India's 25-qubit system is not a failure. It is a beginning. The question this article asks is whether that beginning is proceeding at the pace and with the strategic focus that the moment demands — and what the honest answer looks like when measured against both the global race and India's own stated ambitions.

What Quantum Computing Is, and Why the Next Decade Is Decisive

Quantum computing uses the properties of quantum mechanics — superposition, entanglement, and interference — to perform calculations that classical computers cannot replicate at any practical scale. The applications most frequently cited are drug discovery, materials science, financial optimisation, logistics, cryptography, and climate modelling. These are not peripheral use cases. They are among the most economically consequential computational problems in the world.

The technology is still pre-commercial at meaningful scale. Quantum advantage — the point at which a quantum computer reliably outperforms classical systems on commercially relevant problems — is expected to emerge between 2026 and 2028 in narrow domains, with broader commercial deployment toward the end of the decade. The Defense News This timing means the decisions made now — about research focus, hardware architecture, talent pipelines, international partnerships, and standards engagement — will determine which countries are inside the tent when quantum computing becomes economically transformative, and which are outside it paying licensing fees.

The risk of falling behind in quantum is not merely a missed commercial opportunity. Countries dependent on foreign quantum infrastructure for critical computation face a sovereignty problem: access to the most powerful quantum systems would be mediated by foreign governments and companies, on terms set elsewhere. PostQuantum This is the geopolitical logic that has driven every major economy to announce a national quantum programme. India's National Quantum Mission is its answer to that logic.

The Mission: What Was Promised

The Union Cabinet approved the National Quantum Mission in April 2023 at a total cost of ₹6,003.65 crore for the period 2023-24 to 2030-31, with the stated aim of seeding, nurturing, and scaling up scientific and industrial R&D and creating a vibrant and innovative ecosystem in quantum technology. Principal Scientific Adviser The mission is structured around four thematic hubs covering quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum sensing and metrology, and quantum materials and devices.

The targets set were specific. The NQM aimed to develop quantum computers with 50 to 1,000 physical qubits within eight years, build satellite-based quantum key distribution for secure communications over distances of 2,000 kilometres, develop high-sensitivity quantum sensors, and support a national ecosystem of startups, academic institutions, and industry partners working across the quantum stack.

In institutional terms, the mission moved quickly. Four Thematic Hubs have been established: Quantum Computing at IISc Bengaluru, Quantum Communication at IIT Madras in association with C-DoT, Quantum Sensing and Metrology at IIT Bombay, and Quantum Materials and Devices at IIT Delhi. These hubs have been incorporated as Section-8 companies by their host institutions and have constituted their governing boards. Press Information Bureau

What Has Actually Been Delivered

The honest assessment of progress is mixed — genuine achievements alongside structural gaps that the official narrative tends to understate.

On the positive side, the institutional architecture has been built faster than sceptics expected. Funding has been released to all four hubs. The Quantum Computing Hub, with a sanctioned amount of ₹653.13 crore, received ₹172.70 crore in FY 2025-26 alone, supporting institutions including IIT Guwahati, IIT Delhi, IISc Bengaluru, IIT Bombay, and TIFR Mumbai. Organiser

The startup ecosystem has produced some concrete results. Eight startups have been supported under the mission. QNu Labs has developed and demonstrated a 500-kilometre Quantum Key Distribution network. QpiAI has created a 64-qubit scalable quantum processor. The PQuest Group under IIT Bombay's hub launched India's first indigenous Quantum Diamond Microscope for advanced magnetic field imaging. Press Information Bureau

As of March 2026, 23 quantum labs have been approved across institutions, with another 100 proposals under evaluation. Indian Defence News DRDO and IIT Delhi have demonstrated quantum entanglement-based free-space secure communication over one kilometre. The defence dimension of the mission is advancing in parallel, with DRDO establishing a Quantum Test and Research Centre covering quantum key distribution, post-quantum cryptography, and quantum random number generation.

On the computing hardware side, the trajectory is the right one but the scale remains far from global parity. QpiAI launched its 25-qubit system in April 2025 and has an ambitious roadmap: the company plans to scale to 128 NISQ qubits within two years and 100 logical qubits by 2030. Data Center Dynamics There is a critical caveat, however. Despite success in quantum algorithms and theoretical research, India still relies on foreign sources for critical hardware. QpiAI's 25-qubit superconducting computer is a genuine achievement, but the qubits were fabricated abroad. Quantum Computing Report Indigenous quantum hardware fabrication — the ability to design and manufacture the physical qubit itself — remains largely dependent on external foundries. The NQM has initiated fabrication facilities at IIT Bombay, IISc Bengaluru, IIT Kanpur, and IIT Delhi, but these are in early stages.

The Global Gap

To understand where India stands, the global investment context is essential.

The US National Quantum Initiative invested $2.5 billion between 2019 and 2024. China's national venture fund has committed RMB 1 trillion — approximately $140 billion — for quantum technology development. SpinQ The European Union's Quantum Flagship programme coordinates research across member states with multi-billion-euro commitments. India's ₹6,003 crore — approximately $730 million over eight years — is significant by Indian public R&D standards. It is a fraction of what the frontrunners are deploying.

The qubit count comparison, while crude, illustrates the gap. China holds more than 4,600 documented quantum-related patent filings. The United States has more than 2,200. The Defense News India's position in quantum IP is not yet tracked with the same granularity, and the NITI Aayog roadmap released in late 2025 explicitly acknowledged that India is not among the top ten countries for high-impact quantum research or patent activity in quantum fields. The Quantum Insider

The talent picture is more nuanced and more encouraging. According to McKinsey's quantum talent analysis, the European Union has the highest concentration of quantum talent, followed by India, China, and then the United States. Microsoft Blogs India's graduate output in physics, mathematics, and engineering creates a potential talent base that most countries cannot match in volume. India ranks fourth globally in quantum workforce concentration, trailing the US, Germany, and the UK in employed quantum professionals, but the talent pool is large and growing. Diginomica

The problem is retention. Quantum professionals trained in India are employed disproportionately in the United States and Europe. The NITI Aayog roadmap noted the risk directly: without reforms to intellectual property governance, startup policy, and export controls, Indian founders may choose to redomicile their companies abroad, weakening India's long-term competitiveness. The Quantum Insider

The Structural Constraints

Several constraints are not going to be resolved by incremental funding increases or policy tweaks.

The first is the absence of a domestic quantum hardware supply chain. Building a superconducting quantum computer requires cryogenic systems, specialised cables, microwave electronics, and qubit fabrication at near-absolute-zero temperatures. Talent shortages in cryogenics, optics, microwave engineering, and hands-on hardware development are cited as significant bottlenecks by every serious analysis of India's quantum ecosystem. The Quantum Insider These are not skills that India's universities have historically produced in large numbers. The NQM's investment in fabrication facilities is the right response. The question is whether these facilities can produce globally competitive hardware within the mission's timeline.

The second is venture capital depth. Quantum hardware companies have extraordinarily long development timelines and require patient capital willing to wait a decade for returns. India's venture capital ecosystem has deepened considerably, but low venture capital involvement in deep quantum hardware remains a challenge, alongside bureaucratic hurdles that hinder deep-tech startups. Quantum Computing Report The government funding model — grants to academic institutions and selected startups — is appropriate for early-stage R&D but insufficient to build globally competitive companies. The transition from government-funded prototype to commercially viable product requires private capital at a scale India's quantum sector has not yet attracted.

The third is the basic science funding baseline. India's basic science funding stands at roughly 0.65 percent of GDP The Quantum Insider — a figure that constrains the foundational research pipeline on which applied quantum development depends. Without sustained investment in the physics and materials science underlying quantum technology, the applied layer rests on an insufficiently deep foundation.

The Opportunity That Is Real

None of this amounts to a counsel of despair. India has genuine structural advantages in the quantum race that the funding gap comparison tends to obscure.

The talent advantage, properly retained and deployed, is significant. In September 2025, a coalition of US and Indian venture capital and private equity firms pledged more than $1 billion to fund India's deep tech startups over the next decade, with NVIDIA and Qualcomm Ventures joining the coalition. Asiatechlens The global technology industry is increasingly treating India as a serious quantum R&D destination, not merely a services provider.

The use-case advantage is also underappreciated. India's most commercially pressing computational problems — drug discovery for diseases prevalent in tropical climates, agricultural optimisation at massive scale, logistics across a continent-sized country, financial inclusion modelling for hundreds of millions of underbanked citizens — are precisely the problems for which near-term quantum computing is expected to offer early advantage. If Indian researchers and companies define quantum solutions for Indian problems, they generate IP that has global relevance and domestic deployment scale simultaneously.

The communications and cryptography track, in particular, is advancing more rapidly than the computing track. QNu Labs' 500-kilometre Quantum Key Distribution network is a commercially significant demonstration. Post-quantum cryptography frameworks are being developed under DRDO and the Society for Electronic Transactions and Security, ensuring India's digital infrastructure is prepared for the quantum threat to existing encryption. Press Information Bureau India's enormous digital payments infrastructure — UPI, Aadhaar, the broader digital public infrastructure stack — will eventually require quantum-resistant cryptography. The fact that India is building that capability indigenously rather than importing it is a genuine strategic win.

The NITI Aayog roadmap released in late 2025 set a target that, if achieved, would be transformative: India aims to become one of the world's top three quantum economies by 2035, incubate at least ten globally competitive quantum startups each generating more than $100 million in cumulative revenue, and capture more than 50 percent of the global quantum software and services market. The Quantum Insider The software and services target is the most achievable — it plays directly to India's established engineering depth. The hardware target is the most challenging and the most strategically important.

The Verdict

Where does India actually stand? It stands as a serious but still-developing participant in a race that is being run at a pace and scale it has not yet matched. The National Quantum Mission has built the right institutional architecture, committed meaningful public funding, produced India's first full-stack quantum computer, and generated an early startup ecosystem with some genuine technical achievements. These are not small things.

What the mission has not yet resolved is the harder structural layer: indigenous fabrication capability, deep private capital for hardware development, talent retention at competitive compensation, and a patent portfolio that gives India a meaningful seat at the standards table. The NITI Aayog's own roadmap acknowledged these gaps with unusual candour. That candour is itself a positive sign — it suggests the policy community understands the distance between the vision and the current position.

The next three years are the critical window. Quantum advantage in narrow commercial domains is expected between 2026 and 2028. If India's quantum ecosystem produces indigenous fabrication breakthroughs, retains its talent pipeline, and deploys the NQM's capital with strategic concentration rather than broad diffusion, the 2035 targets are achievable — not certain, but achievable.

If it does not, India risks repeating the pattern of previous technology generations: consuming the infrastructure that others built, on terms that others set, at costs that others determined. The National Quantum Mission was designed precisely to break that pattern. Whether it succeeds will be one of the more consequential technology policy outcomes of this decade.

The Hind covers geopolitics, geoeconomics, technology, and strategic affairs from New Delhi.