EPJ Quantum Technology Publishes Quantum Criticality Index Study by Cho, Kop and Lee
By Editor
Stanford, CA, March 10, 2026—EPJ Quantum Technology, the Springer Nature open-access journal, has published Strategic governance of quantum supply chains: a criticality-based framework for risk, resilience, and data-driven foresight by Dongyoun Cho, Mauritz Kop, and Min-Ha Lee. The peer-reviewed study introduces the Quantum Criticality Index (QCI): an instrument for finding the weak points in the narrow, fragile, globally dispersed supply chains on which all of quantum technology quietly depends.
The Quantum Criticality Index: a tri-axial early-warning instrument for quantum supply chains.
A tri-axial index with a foresight layer
Existing critical-raw-materials lists—the EU Critical Raw Materials Act, the U.S. Critical Minerals Strategy—are essential but too broad and too slow for a field that depends on isotopically enriched silicon-28, helium-3, thin-film lithium niobate, electronic-grade diamond, superconducting niobium, and dilution refrigerators from a handful of suppliers. The QCI answers with a tri-axial assessment—supply risk, substitutability, and strategic significance—augmented by an artificial neural network (ANN)-based trend-detection module and a forward-looking stress-testing component for scenarios such as demand surges, regulatory shocks, and regional disruptions. The result is a dynamic alternative to static control lists: an early-warning instrument that lets national security councils, export-control authorities, and industrial planners see bottlenecks before they crystallize into systemic vulnerabilities.
Strategic governance of quantum supply chains in EPJ Quantum Technology (open access, March 10, 2026).
Molybdenum: flagged in 2024, licensed in 2025
The paper's case study is molybdenum—a refractory metal essential to superconducting circuits, single-photon detectors, and cryogenic hardware. Preliminary QCI results on molybdenum were presented publicly at the 2nd Annual Stanford Responsible Quantum Technology Conference in May 2024, flagging supply-chain concentration and policy sensitivity. On February 4, 2025, China imposed export-licensing requirements on molybdenum—alongside tungsten and other strategic metals—under Announcement No. 10 (2025). Even without an outright ban, the authors document, the measures pushed global prices higher and raised near-term shortage concerns. The QCI had flagged molybdenum's concentration and policy sensitivity months before the licensing decision—the kind of anticipatory signal a criticality index exists to provide.
Twin pillars: a hardware shield beside the software shield
The study's strategic framing will be familiar to readers of this blog: the "harvest-now, decrypt-later" dynamic means the quantum threat window is already open, making allied post-quantum cryptography migration the software shield of quantum security. The QCI supplies the hardware shield: supply-chain assurance that keeps the physical capability to build (or counter) quantum systems secure and accessible. Together they form a twin-pillar security framework in which physical resilience underpins the quantum ecosystem while PQC protects data integrity and critical infrastructure. It is the supply-chain complement to the threat picture Kop laid out at Oxford University on quantum threats, and the analytical engine behind the critical quantum minerals dashboard proposed with Stanford and Los Alamos colleagues—the dashboard operationalizes what the index diagnoses.
From diagnosis to decision to delivery
What separates the paper from most criticality literature is the governance back end. QCI outputs feed a diagnosis–decision–delivery framework that translates risk awareness into an operational policy roadmap: allied procurement coordination, intellectual property governance, targeted licensing, diversification and substitution strategies, calibrated stockpiling, circularity, and verifiable, sustainable supply-chain assurance. The dual-use character of quantum computing, sensing, and communication—and their accelerating convergence with artificial intelligence (AI)—is exactly why these decisions cannot be improvised supplier by supplier; these are the stakes Kop carried into the United Nations International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, where he spoke on responsible quantum innovation.
The author team spans the field's relevant disciplines: Dongyoun Cho (Department of Military Studies, Seokyeong University; International Institute for Strategic Studies–Europe), Mauritz Kop (Centre for International Governance Innovation), and Min-Ha Lee (Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; Korea Institute of Industrial Technology). The work was supported by Stanford's Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance, with the authors expressing special thanks to Andrew J. Grotto.
For policymakers, the message travels well beyond molybdenum: in quantum technology, whoever sees the bottleneck first holds the initiative. An index that converts scattered trade data into early warning is not an academic luxury—it is statecraft instrumentation, arriving while there is still time to act on what it shows.
Last updated: June 5, 2026.