From Quantum Ambition to Quantum Application: Rethinking India’s Path

At a time when global discourse on quantum technology is oscillating between hype and apprehension, IBM’s recent investment announcements in India stand out for their clarity, restraint, and long-term seriousness. While much of the technology world remains fixated on artificial intelligence alone, IBM has been quietly—but decisively—laying the groundwork for India’s participation in the next technological paradigm: quantum computing.

A few days back, IBM announced an ambitious plan to skill lakhs of Indian youth in quantum technology (as well as in artificial intelligence and cybersecurity). This is notable not merely for its scale, but for its sequencing. IBM is not treating quantum as a distant, abstract science problem; it is treating it as a future enterprise technology that requires early workforce preparation. A few months earlier, IBM had entered into strategic partnerships with the Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra governments to anchor quantum infrastructure, skilling, and enterprise use-cases within India.

Taken together, these initiatives send a clear signal: IBM is not experimenting at the margins. It is positioning India as a serious node in its global quantum strategy.

IBM’s Quiet Leadership in Enterprise Quantum Tech 

IBM’s role in quantum computing is often underestimated, largely because it is not sensational. Companies such as Google and Microsoft have recently achieved notable breakthroughs—particularly in error correction, exotic qubit designs, and experimental milestones—and these advances deserve recognition. Yet IBM has pursued a different, but historically consistent path.

IBM is, first and foremost, a global leader in enterprise technology services. Its strength has never been about chasing tech headlines; it has been about making complex technologies usable, reliable, and scalable for large enterprises, organizations, governments, as well as deeptech startups. 

IBM’s advantage lies in its full-stack approach—combining hardware roadmaps, software tooling, cloud access, and decades of experience in enterprise systems integration. This same philosophy now defines IBM’s quantum strategy.

Rather than betting solely on speculative hardware leaps, IBM has focused on:

transparent and credible hardware roadmaps,

cloud-based quantum access for developers,

enterprise-grade software tooling,

and modular system design aligned with operational realities.

In effect, what IBM is attempting to do for quantum computing is what it once did for mainframes, databases, and hybrid cloud: turn a frontier technology into dependable enterprise infrastructure. Seen in this light, IBM’s expanding quantum engagement with India deserves not only appreciation, but sustained policy interest.

India’s National Quantum Mission: Ambition Meets Reality

At the national level, the Government of India has already recognised the strategic importance of quantum technologies through the National Quantum Mission (NQM). With a ₹6000 crore budget and a mandate spanning quantum computing, communication, sensing, and materials, NQM represents one of India’s most ambitious deep-technology programmes to date.

The mission’s strengths are evident. It has created a national framework, brought together academic institutions, startups, and research labs, and signalled India’s intent to compete globally in a technology with implications for defence, communications, materials science, and computation. There have also been early successes, including the emergence of Indian quantum startups, prototyped systems, and structured thematic hubs.

At the same time, NQM faces familiar challenges. Disbursement and execution have been slower than headline announcements, and ambitions around large-scale indigenous quantum hardware remain long-term and uncertain. This should not be read as failure. Quantum hardware development is inherently slow, capital-intensive, and globally competitive. These are structural constraints, not administrative ones.

Crucially, NQM is best understood as central government territory: deep science, long-horizon research, and national-level infrastructure are precisely where the Centre should lead.

State-Level Quantum Ambitions: The Andhra Pradesh Case

Alongside NQM, some state governments have begun articulating their own quantum visions. Among them, Andhra Pradesh stands out for both ambition and momentum. The Amaravati Quantum Valley initiative—as envisioned by Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu (including in his latest articulation today) aims to position Amaravati as a global quantum hub—includes plans for dedicated infrastructure, skilling programs, industry partnerships, and even aspirations around quantum hardware production. The project already benefits from IBM’s involvement and downstream enterprise partners, and the state has moved beyond rhetoric to land allocation and trunk-infrastructure construction.

However, a sober technical assessment suggests that full-scale quantum hardware production within a couple of years is not realistic, for Andhra Pradesh or for any comparable jurisdiction globally. Quantum hardware requires years of materials science research, fabrication learning curves, cryogenic supply chains, and error-correction breakthroughs. These timelines cannot be compressed by policy enthusiasm alone. Ambition, in this domain, must be matched with precision.

A More Viable and Politically Expedient Path for Andhra Pradesh

A more pragmatic—and potentially far more impactful—strategy for Andhra Pradesh is already implicit in the Amaravati Quantum Valley vision and deserves to be made explicit.

Rather than attempting to replicate the Central government’s role in deep quantum hardware development, Andhra Pradesh would be better served by doubling down on quantum applications and enterprise use-cases, where value creation, job generation, and global relevance can materialise far more quickly.

This means deepening the state’s partnership with IBM, allowing IBM and its global ecosystem to deploy already-available quantum systems at Amaravati, while the local ecosystem focuses on integration, problem-solving, and applied innovation.

Early quantum value lies not in exotic demonstrations, but in computationally hard, real-world problems that enterprises and governments already struggle with. These include logistics and supply-chain optimisation, power-grid management, pharmaceutical and chemical simulation, advanced materials design, urban transport planning/management, water resource forecasting and management, etc. Hybrid classical-quantum approaches can already improve outcomes in these domains, even with today’s imperfect quantum hardware.

None of these use-cases require India to invent quantum processors from scratch. They require domain expertise, quantum-aware engineers, hybrid workflows, and close collaboration with enterprises.

Here, IBM’s downstream partnerships with TCS and L&T Technology Services are crucial. These firms already operate at the intersection of cutting-edge technology and real-world enterprise applications. Their presence would enable Amaravati to function as a quantum application laboratory for global enterprises — where proofs-of-concept are converted into deployable solutions and quantum literacy translates directly into employability.

This application-first model would also enable job creation at scale—for optimisation specialists, quantum-aware software engineers, domain consultants, and AI-quantum integration professionals—within a politically meaningful timeframe.

This does not mean Andhra Pradesh should avoid hardware altogether. Selective engagement in system integration, packaging, testing, and simple component development can build technical depth without overreach. But the heavy lifting of core quantum processor development is best left to the Central government’s National Quantum Mission and long-horizon national labs.

Conclusion: Aligning Ambition with Capability

IBM’s quantum initiatives in India deserve serious appreciation—not because they promise miracles, but because they are grounded in enterprise reality. India’s National Quantum Mission provides the long-term scientific backbone, while state-level initiatives like Amaravati can provide speed, scale, and application-driven momentum.

The key is division of labour:

the Centre focuses on deep science and next-gen hardware,

global leaders like IBM bring deployment-ready systems,

and states like Andhra Pradesh focus on integration, application, skilling, and jobs.

India need not win the quantum race by building everything first. It can win by becoming the place where quantum technologies are made applicable, affordable, and economically relevant.

Historically, that is how technological leadership has endured.