NATO’s urgent message to the U.S. highlights a growing threat—quantum technology dependence on foreign suppliers. Discover why this could reshape global defense strategy and what actions are being taken.
Supply chain resilience is a crucial but sometimes disregarded weakness that has surfaced as the revolutionary potential of quantum technology moves from proof-of-concept demonstrations to practical deployment. Experts caution that securing reliable access to essential inputs is now as important as making strides in qubit coherence times.
Even if money and experience are crucial for innovation, they are useless if a business or research lab cannot consistently obtain the parts required for manufacturing and expansion. Potential researchers and investors may become alarmed if even one important component of the supply chain is disrupted, as this might completely halt future research and development. Maintaining steady access to vital materials is a crucial requirement if the US is to continue to lead the world in quantum technology.
Regardless of whatever qubit modality ultimately takes the lead, quantum systems require specialized components that do not yet have commercially scalable substitutes, resulting in lead times that unavoidably limit deployment timescales. These weaknesses were mapped across four main qubit types (superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, and semiconductor spin) and seven enabling technologies in a May 2025 NATO Transatlantic Quantum Community research. A five-metric grading system was used for this assessment, and any component receiving a score of 2.0 or higher needs to be addressed right once.
Quantum Computing Supply Chain risk
The Coldest Area: Ultra-Low Temperatures and Cryogenics
The difficulties in producing the extreme cold required for many quantum processors are characterized by two main chokepoints: helium-3 and dilution-freezers.
The Dilution Refrigerator Bottleneck
In superconducting and some spin-qubit systems, dilution refrigerators are thought to be the most important bottleneck. To preserve coherence, superconducting qubits require extremely intricate cryogenic systems that cool quantum processors to temperatures below 10 millikelvin, which is hundreds of times colder than the temperature of space.
Three major vendors now control the market: Oxford Instruments (United Kingdom), Janis Research (United States), and Bluefors (Finland, which has a sizable U.S. manufacturing capacity in Syracuse, New York). Maybell Quantum (Colorado) is also becoming a player. More than 1,500 dilution refrigerator systems have been deployed worldwide by market leader Bluefors. Even with a daily manufacturing flow of roughly one system, lead times are currently in the range of six to nine months.
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Since hardware iterations for quantum computer manufacturers usually occur every 12 to 18 months, these lead times pose serious limitations. This infrastructure is necessary for large-scale systems like Google’s Willow chip and IBM’s Quantum System Two, which leverage Bluefors’ KIDE platform for systems with more than 1,000 qubits. Within months, U.S. superconducting quantum development would be essentially stopped if the supply of dilution-freezers were disrupted. There is a certain amount of resilience provided by multisite operations, such as Bluefors’ Syracuse facility, which manages all cryocooler manufacture.
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Helium-3 Scarcity
The “specialized fuel” required for quantum refrigeration is helium-3. Dilution refrigerators combine the uncommon helium-3 isotope with helium-4 to produce extremely low temperatures. Since it is not found in significant amounts in nature, helium-3 is extremely rare. It is mostly acquired as a byproduct of tritium decay in nuclear weapons projects.
Dependency on Helium-3 has been flagged as a unique, high-priority risk on multiple occasions by the quantum sector. Any significant growth that calls for scaling to hundreds or tens of thousands of quantum computers necessitates securing trustworthy additional sources, even if Bluefors uses closed-loop technologies to conserve and recycle the gas, alleviating some of the immediate supply pressure. The United States does not yet have a clear plan to acquire Helium-3 at the necessary scale, with the exception of an arrangement with Interlune (under the Department of Energy Isotope Program).
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Critical Minerals and Concentration Risks
The main issue with rare earth elements and specialty optical materials is not a shortage but rather processing concentration.
Rare Earth Elements and Export Controls
For example, photonic quantum systems (which depend on erbium and ytterbium for optical components) and neutral atom systems (which depend on alkali metals like rubidium and strontium) both depend on rare earth elements (elements 57–71). More than 90 percent of the necessary high-purity rare earth processing occurs outside NATO territory, despite the fact that these elements are not actually rare.
China controls 90% of the processing and has 69% of the world’s rare earth reserves. Additionally, if a dual-use product uses rare earths made in China, export limits have been extended to include any dual-use products that comprise 0.1 percent or more of the exported product’s value. These constraints are extensive, despite the fact that quantum applications only require modest amounts (kilogrammes annually).
Building domestic acquisition and refinement capability through a “pilot program” could provide a route to resilience prior to wider domestic scale, given the tiny quantities needed.
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Lithium Niobate: The Hidden Crystal Risk
A specialized nonlinear optical substance called lithium niobate (also known as barium titanate) is essential for photonic quantum information processing because it allows photons to be controlled and routed with the least amount of quantum information loss. China’s CASTECH and Japan’s Sumitomo Metal Mining are the two largest producers of commercial lithium niobate wafers, with China reportedly controlling 60–70% of the market for premium crystal boules.
No American supplier has shown the ability to make the large-diameter, high-purity wafers required for scalable photonic quantum computing, even if American firms like ADVR and HyperLight are supplying components. The majority of scaled manufacturing is expected to take place outside of the United States, despite the fact that the intellectual property required for processing and etching lithium niobate was created in the country. The development of significant domestic crystal growth and processing capacity for quantum applications could be accomplished with a modest investment, probably between $100 and $300 million, perhaps encouraged by the Defence Production Act, in contrast to the enormous investments needed for semiconductor fabrication facilities.
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Semiconductors: The Common Denominator Risk
Semiconductor manufacture is a cross-cutting issue that impacts almost all quantum platforms.
Advanced-node production is dominated by Asian fabrication facilities, and control electronics for all qubit types—superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, and neutral atoms– rely on specialized circuits, such as FPGAs and ASICs.
A special problem for semiconductor spin qubits, which store information in silicon electron spins, is that they need silicon-28 that is isotopically pure. Quantum coherence is destroyed by silicon-29, a magnetic material found in standard silicon. The substance must be created utilizing cutting-edge 300mm-scale processing equipment, which is only found in a few facilities, and this purification is costly and specialized. Quantum-specific fabrication needs are still not well met, despite certain gaps being filled by the U.S. CHIPS and Science Act. In order to lessen dependency on foreign infrastructure, companies have asked for a dedicated line of quantum semiconductors, possibly driven by firms like Applied Materials or Intel, that aggregates demand across quantum modalities.
Specialized Components and Resilience
Immediate single points of failure are present in a number of specialized components. These include photodetectors (which are necessary for photonic readout), pulse tubes (which are made in the United States, Japan, and Europe for cryogenic cooling), and ion pumps (which are used for ultra-high vacuum).
Most significantly, the only reliable Western supply of electronic-grade diamond—a substance essential for quantum memory and sensing applications—is Element Six, a UK subsidiary of De Beers. Due to this capacity limitation, Chinese suppliers of cutting-edge diamond substrates have been regularly contacting academic researchers.
The speed and scale at which quantum systems can go from producing tens of units annually to thousands is directly determined by these supply chain vulnerabilities, which are not merely theoretical. To transition from risk to preparedness, policy interventions must be implemented quickly—not over five-year plans, but through manufacturing investments, procurement choices, and regulatory changes that can be implemented in as little as 18 to 24 months.
