Introduction
May, 2025. A new, lifesaving drug simulation is being tested inside a modest pharmacy here, and it’s driven by the most powerful of computing algorithms: quantum. While in Berlin, across the Atlantic, a top cybersecurity expert stays up during the night concerned about what lies ahead for her industry. The encryption algorithms she has long relied upon to protect sensitive information could, on the coming quantum internet, be easily broken by an adversary. These conflicting scenes paint a compelling picture of the double-edged sword that quantum computing unavoidably is.
With advances like Microsoft’s Majorana 1 chip and Google’s Willow chip, 2025 has the potential to be a breakthrough year for the world of quantum computing. Promises of accelerated drug discoveries, improved supply chains, and richer AI insights are generating plenty of excitement — but just beneath the surface is an equally compelling story of insecurity, job displacement, and greater inequality.
“None of that is to say that in principle quantum computing isn’t a game changer, in fact the United Nations has named 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, in broad agreement about its game changing potential. Private investment has taken off as well, with $1.7 billion of quantum start-up funding in 2024 alone. And yet, the mood isn’t exuberant. This progress will be a tool for the enrichment of all of mankind, or it will fall into the hands of a small elite few.
Below, we will examine the most significant advances, their societal implications, the ethical quandaries that may arise, and the roads that will be traversed on the way to a responsible future of quantum computing.
The Breakthroughs A Quantum Leap Ahead
Chips, Qubits and the race to scale
From error-corrected chips, to hybrid quantum-classical computers, 2025 has been the year of hardware. (For reference, Microsoft’s Majorana 1recentlysupereduced error under 1% on 8 topological qubits as IBM has developed a 4,158 qubit architecture they too are trying to scale qubits for real-world utility.) Google has also made cutting-edge progress using their atomic tech, reaching a promising 99.5% fidelity and pushing the science of scalable Quantum Error Correction (QEC) to the max.
Beside the hardware, application breakthroughs are reshaping industries. Quantinuum-HPE’s Quantum-AI hybrids have shown advances in battery designs, while Amgen has used quantum simulations to accelerate drug trials by months if not years. Meanwhile, Caltech’s work to build safe multi-qubit quantum networks represent a major step forward in cryptography and secure communication technology.
The Downsides: But the headlong rush to scale has hidden downsides. Noise, system noise, and astronomical cooling costs are still an issue for the technology. These holes will mean that the advantages of quantum computing are much more valuable to big tech companies than to the average consumer.
Supporting Expert Insights
Multi-qubit networking, Andrei Faraon at Caltech has said, is “the start of domestic quantum communication.”
On the other hand, some experts caution that by prioritizing speed, the service could move beyond important milestones of stability and trust.
Sure, Quantum sounds all fast and innovative and stuff, but can we trust that progress to be stable?
The Human Side Lives Touched by the Quantum
From Hope to Hardship
Quantum computing, for some, is the savior. In India, a researcher who is using quantum simulations to design a drug for malaria recently reduced times for trials by more than 50%, with the potential to make treatment accessible to millions in the developing world. Quantum computing has made previously impossible innovation challenges open to exploration and experimentation by reducing experimentation cost and wait time.
For Sarah K., a cybersecurity professional at a data protection firm in Silicon Valley, these strides are harbingers of doom. This time Shor’s algorithm, a theoretical concept, has grown into an actual threat of being able to break RSA encryption over night. “It’s terrifying,” she says. “Something as secure as the internet and as ubiquitous as the phone system could be broken,” he said.“Decades of encryption work could go out the window.”
That duality of promise and peril also is reflected in the mixed views of industry surveys on quantum. And even though 55% of executives around the world believe that quantum is the most disruptive technology for 2025, skeptics such as Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang maintain that its real-world applications are at least 15–30 years away.
Critique: The benefits of quantum computers for humans skyrockets niche sectors like pharma and simultaneously builds a depth of vulnerability for the too-many still using “secure” technologies.
Narratives Beyond the Numbers
Stories like these are just one example of a classic dam¬break dynamic in such disruptive technologies: Growth tends to come at the immediate cost of some. Without equitable dissemination, quantum may simply become another instrument to exacerbate an existing divide between haves and have nots.
The Dangers of Security Jobs and Inequality
Security at Stake
So if quantum computing is the hammer, encryption is the nail. Shor’s algorithm blows apart traditionally secure data storage encryption schemes, and so now we are faced with the impending need to move to post-quantum cryptography (PQC). Yet 40% of firms surveyed are still not ready to implement PQC to meet deadlines. The knock-on effects could even ripple out to industries as varied as banking and health care.
Dislocation in the Job Market and the Workforce
New evidence suggests quantum headway may replace more than 15% of the global workforce by 2030. Strangely enough, coders and data analysts face the highest threat, with machine learning algorithms on quantum-based platforms overshadowing manual work.
Global business leaders feel far from “quantum-ready” with only 12% having a quantum plan, according to a new report from Amdocs. This demonstrates a clear gap between the haves and have nots at both the national, industry and demographic levels.
Systemic Inequality The unpreparedness and the unequal rollouts of PQC will only serve to enhance the digital divide. Rich countries like the United States lead quantum patent filings and as expected, under development regions are lagging behind.