Insider Brief
- A new study by researchers at Stanford University and Los Alamos National Laboratory warns that quantum technologies face severe supply chain vulnerabilities tied to critical minerals largely controlled by China.
- The paper identifies niobium and nickel as key chokepoints for superconducting quantum computers, noting that Chinese firms have quietly acquired significant ownership stakes in the Brazilian and Indonesian operations that dominate global supply.
- The researchers propose a continuously updated Quantum Criticality and Critical Minerals dashboard to give governments and allied partners real-time early warning of supply disruptions before they affect mission-critical quantum systems.
- Photo by omid roshan on Unsplash
A new study warns that the exotic raw materials powering quantum computers, sensors and secure communications are dangerously concentrated in the hands of a few countries — mostly China — and that standard government critical-minerals lists are too slow and too blunt to protect this emerging technology sector.
The paper, published on the Social Science Research Network by researchers at Stanford University, Los Alamos National Laboratory and the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada, includes a proposal that quantum technologies require their own dedicated supply-chain monitoring system — a real-time dashboard that tracks which materials are at risk, how badly they are needed and how quickly a disruption could cripple a mission-critical system deployed in space, the Arctic or a defense environment.
The stakes go well beyond economics, the researchers write. Whoever controls the supply chains for quantum technologies could ultimately decide which nations get access to computing power capable of cracking encryption algorithms that today protect trillions of dollars in global financial transactions and government secrets.
Unlike traditional industries, quantum computing and related technologies depend on materials that are needed in tiny quantities but are absolutely irreplaceable. IBM’s superconducting quantum processors use niobium. Google’s Willow chip uses indium for the connectors between wafers. Microsoft’s topological qubit prototype uses indium arsenide and indium phosphate. Amazon’s Ocelot chip relies on tantalum for its high-quality oscillators.
The study identifies niobium as the clearest example of a material that is economically modest in total market size but strategically outsized in its effect on quantum computing. Niobium is used to build the superconducting circuits — called Josephson junctions — that form the basic operating units of most leading quantum computers. There is no practical substitute that does not come with significant performance trade-offs.
The United States imports 100% of its niobium supply, with Brazil producing roughly 90% of the world’s niobium from a single dominant mine and Canada accounting for nearly all of the rest. That concentration alone is alarming, the study indicates, but the ownership picture is worse. Chinese state-owned enterprises have quietly moved to acquire significant stakes in Brazilian niobium operations. In 2016, China Molybdenum Company purchased Anglo American’s niobium and phosphate operations in Brazil outright, becoming the world’s second-largest niobium producer. In late 2024, China Nonferrous Metal Mining Group acquired another Brazilian firm with niobium assets. The result is that China is steadily gaining strategic leverage over a material it does not mine on its own soil, a leverage it could exercise to constrain U.S. quantum technology development.
Magnetic shielding for superconducting quantum computers presents a related problem. These machines must be isolated from stray magnetic fields, which requires wrapping them in specialized nickel-iron alloys — commercially known as mu-metal — with a nickel content of 77% to 80%. While the U.S. imports only 41% of its nickel supply, the study indicates that China controls at least 75% of Indonesia’s nickel refining capacity through a complex web of shell companies and ownership structures. Indonesia produces 66% of the world’s nickel. In practice, the supply chain for quantum magnetic shielding is nearly as exposed to Chinese leverage as the supply chain for niobium itself, according to the paper.
Paperwork War
The paper suggests China does not need to physically block exports to inflict economic damage, a key lesson from the recent trade conflict with China. It can use licensing requirements and administrative controls to tighten markets, raise prices and convert commercial dependence into strategic vulnerability.
The market for Bismuth, which is used in various quantum and semiconductor applications, illustrates that lesson. When China added bismuth to its dual-use export control list in February 2025, the spot price spiked from roughly $12 per kilogram to more than $108 per kilogram within weeks — an increase of nearly tenfold. The price of antimony, another controlled material, rose 250% following similar Chinese restrictions, adding to a cumulative three-year increase of 450%. The researchers use these examples as a stress test of what they call the “geopolitical exposure” indicator in their criticality model — a signal of how quickly administrative action in Beijing can translate into a supply emergency in Washington.
In April 2025, China imposed export licensing restrictions on gadolinium and six other heavy rare earth elements — samarium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium and yttrium — for which it holds what amounts to a global monopoly. These materials are used in quantum sensors, optical memories and lasers. Earlier, in December 2024, China banned exports of gallium, germanium and antimony to the United States. In February 2025, it imposed additional controls on bismuth, indium, molybdenum, tellurium and tungsten. Several of these materials appear directly in quantum technology components.
Satellites and Sensors in Danger
The study’s second major focus involves quantum systems deployed in space, particularly superconducting nanowire single-photon detectors, or SNSPDs, which are used in quantum communications systems that distribute encryption keys using the laws of physics rather than mathematical assumptions. These detectors achieve detection efficiencies above 90% in laboratory conditions, far outperforming conventional alternatives, according to the paper. But they have not been proven to survive the radiation, thermal swings, vibration and electromagnetic interference that spacecraft routinely encounter.
Cosmic rays and background gamma radiation are particularly concerning for quantum hardware in orbit. When high-energy particles pass through a quantum processor, they can add heat, breaking apart the paired electrons — called Cooper pairs — that give superconducting circuits their properties. The disruption produces cascading errors that can undermine the very error-correction systems that quantum computers rely on to operate reliably. In space, where there are more particle fluxes than at the Earth’s surface, such events would be far more frequent.
The paper maps out four categories of space-environment threats to quantum systems, including: radiation damage, thermal cycling, vibration and electromagnetic interference. Each degrades specific device metrics — increasing error rates in quantum key distribution links, reducing detection efficiency or causing detectors to register phantom signals called dark counts. The researchers argue that the central mission-assurance question is not just whether these failures occur, but whether they happen gradually and predictably — allowing operators to compensate — or suddenly and silently, ending a mission without warning.
Quantum Criticality and Critical Minerals Dashboard
Current U.S. government tools for managing critical minerals are not designed for the quantum sector, the study suggests. The U.S. Geological Survey publishes an annual list of 50 critical minerals, and the Defense Department maintains a national stockpile — now being expanded under a program called Project Vault — but both instruments are built around tonnage and broad industrial applications. They miss the small-volume, high-specificity materials that quantum technologies require, such as helium-3, silicon-28, rubidium isotopes and the detector materials used in SNSPDs. These inputs are needed in tiny amounts but have qualification timelines measured in years, meaning that a supply disruption cannot be solved by simply finding a new source.
The paper proposes a dedicated Quantum Criticality and Critical Minerals dashboard, which would be a continuously updated, publicly visible tool that would track concentration risks, refining chokepoints, substitutability, qualification bottlenecks, stockpiling gaps and geopolitical stress signals for each material used across quantum computing, sensing, networking and communications platforms. The researchers argue the bismuth price spike demonstrates the dashboard’s intended value. In that case, a licensing action in one country produced a tenfold price move within 30 days, which is well inside the revision cycle of any static government list.
The study also frames post-quantum cryptography migration and quantum supply-chain security as twin pillars that must be advanced together. Post-quantum cryptography involves new mathematical algorithms designed to resist attacks from quantum computers — replacing today’s encryption methods before quantum machines powerful enough to break them arrive, possibly in the 2030s. If the physical supply chain for quantum hardware fails, the researchers argue, mission-capable quantum systems cannot be built. If the cryptographic transition fails, even functioning quantum hardware may operate atop networks that are vulnerable to interception and decryption.
Limits and Future Work
The study is scoped as a framework paper rather than a comprehensive quantitative analysis. Its assessments rely on publicly available data from the USGS and other sources, and the researchers acknowledge that a more rigorous analysis would require platform-specific bills of materials — detailed lists of every component and its material inputs for each type of quantum computer or sensor — as well as empirically validated substitution pathways and qualification timelines. Neither of those datasets currently exists in the public domain for quantum systems.
The researchers also note that the human capital dimension of quantum supply chains — the specialized scientists, engineers and technicians needed to operate advanced fabrication facilities — is not fully captured in their model. For the United States, they conclude, this constraint is currently manageable but could become important as quantum manufacturing scales up. For China, human capital is currently a binding constraint, but one that is likely to ease over time as the country’s domestic quantum research and training ecosystem matures.
The team includes Min-Ha Lee, of Stanford Center on International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; Jolante van Wijk, Los Alamos National Laboratory; Mauritz Kop, Stanford University and Alan Hurd.
The paper was posted as a preprint on the Social Science Research Network and has not yet undergone formal peer review.
