Learning before the quantum computer arrives

A few weeks after I started experimenting with quantum computing, I came across an article in The Quantum Record about teaching quantum computing in high school. I know its founder, James Myers, and we had already exchanged thoughts about how prepared society is for quantum computing. A few weeks earlier, I suspect I would have considered the idea premature.

My own picture had already started to change. I had first become interested in quantum computing through a Dutch machine that led me to write Quantum computing is more than qubits. Then I discovered that I could already write a quantum circuit on my laptop, simulate it and send it through the cloud to an actual quantum processor. That became You can already use a quantum computer. The machines were still experimental. My access to them wasn't.

When I tell people that I've been spending time on quantum computing, especially younger people, I often get the same question: why?

I have been wondering about that myself. Curiosity is part of the answer. Preparedness is another. My work involves trying to understand technological change before all its consequences are obvious, and quantum computing is beginning to feel close enough that ignoring it simply because I have no immediate use for it seems an odd choice.

There is something slightly uncomfortable about that answer. I don't know whether I will ever need to program a quantum computer. I don't know how important quantum computing will become to my own work. But perhaps that is precisely what makes the question interesting. When do you start learning about a technology you don't yet need?

Reading about education pushed that observation one step further. If people can already begin working with quantum computing, when should they begin learning about it?

Starting early

There is an obvious objection to teaching quantum computing in schools. We don't yet have broadly useful quantum computers. The technology is developing quickly, but much of what exists today remains research infrastructure. It seems reasonable to wait until we know what we are preparing students for.

The Quantum Record article approaches the problem from the other direction. Students entering secondary education today will enter university and work while quantum computing is developing. Waiting for the technology to mature may therefore mean waiting too long to build the knowledge around it.

That resonated with my own small experiment. I didn't need a useful quantum computer to learn something from it. Writing even simple circuits forced me to confront concepts quite different from classical programming. Simulation made those concepts tangible, while cloud access connected them to physical machines.

The educational value had arrived before the practical value of the computer.

Looking around

Once I started paying attention, I also noticed that this discussion wasn't as hypothetical as I had assumed.

I came across Peter Denteneer at Leiden University, whose work brought me into the Dutch discussion around quantum education. Leiden is also involved in a broader Talent & Learning Centre for quantum technology, bringing vocational, applied and university education together with companies.

Then there is Amsterdam. QDNL Amsterdam connects researchers, entrepreneurs, students and the workforce, with education explicitly part of its mission. Its Quantum Experience includes the rather wonderful question of how you actually program a quantum computer. The University of Amsterdam and CWI have QuSoft, while this summer Amsterdam hosted QSim2026, an international conference bringing together researchers working on quantum simulation.

Delft showed me another part of the picture. QuTech combines research and engineering around quantum computing and the quantum internet, surrounded by a growing group of specialist companies. Its Quantum Inspire platform is particularly interesting in this context because it gives people a route to gain experience with quantum computing and actual quantum hardware.

I am only touching these worlds. That is partly the point. A subject I had filed away as distant research keeps becoming more tangible whenever I touch another part of it: software, hardware, education, research communities, companies and people already thinking about what knowledge will be needed.

Preparedness

I recognise something here from artificial intelligence.

For years, preparing for AI could reasonably be treated as preparation for a future technology. Then the technology crossed an awkward boundary. Organisations suddenly needed people who understood what these systems could do, how to use them and how to reason about their consequences. Building that understanding proved slower than gaining access to the technology.

Quantum computing may develop very differently. The comparison only goes so far. Yet it has made me more cautious about assuming that education should follow technological maturity.

There is also a broader meaning of preparedness here. A country can invest in research facilities, companies and hardware, but its ability to make something of those investments eventually depends on people. Some will build quantum computers. Others will develop algorithms, teach, regulate, invest, procure or decide where the technology is useful. Most will never need to understand the physics in depth, just as most people working with computers today do not understand semiconductor physics.

I don't yet know what quantum education should look like, how early it should begin, or whether the examples I am finding amount to anything like a coherent response. I have barely started looking.

What has changed is my sense of when those questions become relevant. I had assumed we could wait for the computers. The people building the ecosystem clearly aren't waiting.