Quantum sensing steps into the spotlight as innovation and insecurity reshape the world
by Karina Robinson FCSI(Hon)
In the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Cinderella cooks, cleans and sleeps in a corner of the kitchen until the day she emerges into the spotlight and her fortunes change.
Quantum sensing – an advanced measurement technology that achieves a level of precision that classical sensors cannot – shares a similar story. While quantum computers attract public and government attention despite not being capable of carrying out a useful operation at scale, quantum sensors, labouring away in relative obscurity, are seeing their technological development gather pace.
Quantum sensors are being used across multiple industries, including healthcare – MRI machines use them. The race is on to decrease their size and cost to make them widely available for commercial use. Two examples serve to illustrate their usefulness.
Over 12 months ago, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s plane lost satellite signals while trying to land in Bulgaria. Russia was suspected but denied any involvement. The jamming of GPS navigation signals by an enemy has become more common anywhere near conflict zones.
As an alternative to GPS, quantum navigation uses quantum sensors to map the Earth’s magnetic field and pinpoint location. Airbus is among many aerospace companies currently testing the technology, which it says is “impermeable to GPS jamming or spoofing”.
Another example is in the energy sector. Delta.g, a UK-based quantum sensor company, manufactures quantum gravity sensors that provide subsurface information before ground is broken. This allows for the earlier detection of pipeline leaks, monitoring of carbon emissions and exploration of potential wells, a compelling advance in efficiency and productivity with environmental benefits.
According to Delta.g’s CEO Tony Lowe, these sensors could be produced commercially by the end of 2027. They would go from being the size of a large fridge to ultimately being the size of a Coke can.
The company recently announced an upcoming partnership with French energy giant TotalEnergies to advance subsurface intelligence. Lowe said: “The company mission is to be the Google Maps of the subsurface. We know more about the bottom of the ocean than we do about what is beneath our feet, and industry wastes billions every year because of it.”
It looks like Cinderella will be going to the ball sooner rather than later.
Innovation meets insecurity
Quantum and other frontier technologies were featured at the Farnborough International Airshow, which ran from 20 to 24 July. One of the premier European aerospace and defence fairs, its record numbers reflected a world that is, in the words of Blaise Metreweli, head of MI6, the most dangerous and contested in decades.
She pointed out in her December 2025 opening speech as chief of the Secret Intelligence Service that the UK is “now operating in a space between peace and war.” It is far from the only country doing so. Of the Farnborough exhibitors, ranging from well-known names like British Aerospace to Italy’s Leonardo, more than 63% were international.
The July event had sold out by October 2025 and required an extra exhibition hall. Of its record 1,636 exhibitors, 22% were there for the first time, highlighting new participants in the defence space. The same goes for investors. Over 600 finance and investment professionals showed up for the newly launched Aerospace Global Forum: Finance Summit. Innovation and investment were the new markers for Farnborough.
US firms took up over a third of the site’s total exhibition space, giving smaller, innovative firms access to some of the world’s biggest defence and aerospace buyers in one location. But the new emphasis on sovereignty – one of the issues dominating the show – in a world where US commitment to its allies is subject to tsunamis of change, made the US presence a double-edged sword.
Admiral Sir George Zambellas, a former First Sea Lord, put this clearly in an article on Galaxkey that focused on data as a national asset. His view is that the UK and others have been too complacent in choosing efficiency over data sovereignty. By accepting the convenience of information being in the cloud, virtually all run by American companies, their “data back door is wide open to exploitation in networks, communication systems, energy grids, logistics and digital infrastructure. And in the military.”
Supply chains in choppy waters
President Donald Trump’s pop-up tariffs, announced recently, have certainly added to the increased complexity of international trade and investment, already dealing with supply chains battered by a more hostile world and its logistical challenges.
For quantum sensors, for instance, the supply chain is a major vulnerability. Over 90% of the processing of ultra-pure materials needed for them takes place outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), according to a study for NATO by Heijman Consultancy and CJW Quantum Consulting.
Navigating the shoals of this new world disorder will take both technological and human skills. We wish the UK’s newly installed prime minister, Andy Burnham, the best of luck as he steers the ship of state over the next few years.
The opinions in this column are those of the author and not necessarily shared by the CISI.