Quantum sensing gathers pace as navies eye undersea advantage
The Royal Navy’s Excalibur autonomous submarine has been used to trial quantum technologies, including Infleqtion UK’s Tiqker quantum optical atomic clock. (Photo: Infleqtion)
As AI dominates defence conversations, industry increasingly points to quantum sensing as the technology set to change submarine and uncrewed underwater vehicle operations.
Artificial intelligence (AI) dominated much of the discussion at the Thales Tech Summit, held in London on 14 September, yet senior voices pointed to quantum technology as the next disruptive force in defence, particularly in the maritime and undersea domain.
Phil Siveter, chief executive of Thales in the UK, told delegates: “AI has already changed the contest; quantum will change it again.”
Patrice Caine, chairman and CEO of Thales, went further, arguing that quantum sensing could deliver an operational advances far beyond that already achieved through AI. Caine said quantum sensing work underway at Thales would “clearly lead to
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