FEATURE INTO THE FUTURE Quantum Technologies and the Impact on the Resilience of the Subsea Cable System BY DEVON A. JOHNSON
This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be. ––Alan Turing, The Times, 1949 The father of computing, Alan Turing, made the above comment regarding an early computing machine fabricated by colleagues at the University of Manchester.1 The remark not only embodies a prescience as to the limitless possibility ascribed to the computers of the modern age, but the reflection also seamlessly applies to a new technology, sitting at the nexus of physics, mathematics, computation, and encryption, that has the same boundless scope for impact: quantum. Whilst the remit of its deployment includes the fields of defence, agriculture and medicine, quantum is further staged to impact the telecommunications industry and, as a result, the subsea fibre-optic cable systems currently powering the world’s internet and economy. Carrying over 96% of digital traffic and over $10 trillion in financial transactions each day, submarine telecoms cables are the peripheral nervous system of the internet and the backbone of the global economy. Criss-crossing the world’s oceans, lakes and seas, they are, in short, the very literal 1 Alan Turing in The Times, June 11, 1949.
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lines of communication facilitating humanity’s interconnection. From sending emails to posting photos of your holiday on social media to messaging friends via text or various chat fora, the preponderance of society interacts on a daily basis with this critical international infrastructure. And, given “the augment of Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things [evidencing] society’s new information reliant reality”, humanity is poised to become ever more reliant on this critical component of subsea.2 Consequently, the key role submarine fibre-optic cables have played, and will continue to play, in upholding such vital functions of society render it meritorious of a closer look as to how an emergent disruptive technology could affect the industry. Though quantum in and of itself remains very nascent, with quantum computers still in the early stages of development, academics and practitioners alike have already begun to prepare for its forthcoming reverberations. Even back in 1994, when “quantum computers were still years away from becoming a physical reality,” Peter Schor developed an anticipatory algorithm to create a method 2 Matthew T.E. Bowden, Glenn A. Lipsham and Devon A. Johnson, “Diving Deep: Britain’s Critical Submarine Cable Infrastructure,” in Maritime Britain: In the 21st Century, ed. Kate Jamieson, Kevin Rowlands and Andrew Young (Dartmouth: Britannia Publishing, 2024), 228.