Britain Is Quantum Defence’s Test Range, Not Its Buyer

In May 2023 the Royal Navy and Imperial College London tested a quantum accelerometer in a pod aboard XV Patrick Blackett. The sensor uses cold atoms to measure a change in speed, and it is the kind of instrument that might one day let a ship find its way with no satellite fix at all. The pod was one of a set of swap-in bays that QinetiQ designed, so devices could go in and come out again. The ship’s captain, Commander Michael Hutchinson, said the technology was “still in its very early stages”. He was right about more than the sensor. Three and a half years later, Britain’s defence quantum effort still looks like that pod. It is a well-made bay that other people’s devices pass through. At least twelve field tests of quantum hardware with the forces, Dstl (the ministry’s research laboratory) or a defence firm have been published since 2023, and the ministry has published no order to buy any of it in numbers. Britain has become very good at trying quantum. The established firms that lead its navigation and timing research, meanwhile, have American parents. The public registers make the point…