The armed forces’ quantum framework, released in January 2026, covers communication, computing, sensing and materials. The Army has bought quantum key distribution and is rolling out post-quantum encryption, but computing is a 6-qubit lab processor, sensing is prototype contracts, and the first Indian ultra-cold refrigerator for quantum computers is due only in late 2027.
India’s Military Quantum Plan Has Four Pillars. So Far, the Forces Have Bought Only One
Update, 9 October 2026. The funding section has been revised. Budget coverage puts the National Quantum Mission’s 2026-27 allocation at ₹900 crore, not the ₹600 crore this article first gave, and one report puts the 2025-26 revised estimate at ₹755 crore against another’s ₹477 crore; the budget lines now come to 24% to 29% of the outlay, not about a fifth. A February 2026 Lok Sabha answer, as reported, put releases to institutions at ₹699.50 crore. DRDO’s July 2026 field trials of a fibre QKD system with Taqbit Labs have been added. Parliament answers of 31 July and 12 August 2026 could not be opened and are not reflected.
On 22 January 2026 the Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, released a Military Quantum Mission Policy Framework for the Army, Navy and Air Force. It rests on four pillars, quantum communication, quantum computing, quantum sensing and metrology, and quantum materials and devices, and ties the services to the civilian National Quantum Mission (NQM). The document itself has not been published; what is public is the list of pillars and a statement that it sets phased milestones and governing bodies.
Laid against what the services and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have actually built and bought, the four pillars are at very different stages. Secure communication has equipment on contract and software being rolled out. Computing is a laboratory processor, sensing is a set of prototype contracts, and the materials pillar is still waiting for its first Indian machine.
Four pillars, four stages
Stages are this blog’s reading of the public record, not an official assessment. Sources: PIB releases from the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Science and Technology, 2020–2026, and the trade press listed below.
Communication: the one pillar the forces have bought
Quantum key distribution sends encryption keys as single photons, so that anyone reading them in transit disturbs them and is detected. The Army trialled QNu Labs’ system over 150 km with trusted relay nodes in 2022, through the defence ministry’s iDEX start-up programme, and signed a procurement contract on 30 September 2024 to replace algorithm-based encryption on some links. DRDO and IIT Delhi have shown the same idea over 100 km of ordinary telecom fibre and, in 2025, over 1 km of open air using entangled photons, at about 240 bits of key a second.
That rate is the limitation. QKD needs a dedicated fibre or line of sight, and its key rates fall with distance, so it suits fixed links between headquarters, not every radio in the field. Most of the protection against future quantum code-breaking will come from post-quantum cryptography, which is new mathematics running on existing networks. The Army said in June 2025 that applications developed at MCTE Mhow were being integrated across its networks; no deadline for the rest of government has been announced.
Computing, sensing and materials: still in the laboratory
DRDO tested a 6-qubit superconducting processor in August 2024. That is a research device: useful machines need far more qubits and far lower error rates, and every superconducting qubit has to sit near absolute zero. The refrigerators that get it there, dilution refrigerators reaching 20 millikelvin, are imported. On 25 September 2026 DRDO signed its first high-value contract from a ₹500 crore deep-tech fund with Zero mK India, an Alwar start-up, to build one; its first prototype is due in the fourth quarter of 2027.
Quantum sensing matters to the military because it promises navigation and timing that cannot be jammed or spoofed the way GPS can. DRDO’s missile laboratory has contracted a start-up for a quantum gyroscope and a Rydberg-atom radio sensor, and its Technology Development Fund has asked industry for quantum sensors for guided weapons. These are development contracts; none has a published delivery date.
The money behind the mission
The military framework has no published budget of its own; it leans on the civilian mission. NQM was approved at ₹6,003.65 crore over eight years, about ₹750 crore a year. The budget lines reported so far are much smaller:
| National Quantum Mission | ₹ crore | Source and caveat |
|---|---|---|
| Approved outlay, 2023-24 to 2030-31 | 6,003.65 | Cabinet, April 2023; about ₹750 crore a year on average |
| 2023-24: actual spending | nil | Union Budget documents, as analysed by Quantum India Brief |
| 2024-25: budget / revised | 427 / 86 | Union Budget documents, as reported |
| 2024-25: released / used | 43.07 / 32.77 | Policy Circle; another analysis of budget documents gives actual spending of 62.36 |
| 2025-26: budget / revised | 600 / 477 or 755 | Reports differ on the revised figure (Outlook Business; budget coverage, February 2026) |
| 2026-27: budget | 900 | As reported after the Union Budget, February 2026 |
| Released to institutions, to February 2026 | 699.50 of 2,330.68 sanctioned | Lok Sabha answer of 4 February 2026 (PIB 2223187), as reported |
The budget lines for 2024-25 to 2026-27 add up to between about ₹1,460 crore and ₹1,740 crore, depending on which 2025-26 revised figure is right: 24% to 29% of the outlay, with nearly half the mission period gone. Money actually released is smaller. As reported, the government told the Lok Sabha in February 2026 that ₹699.50 crore had been released to institutions, about 12% of the outlay, against ₹2,330.68 crore of projects sanctioned. Two later Parliament answers on the mission, of 31 July and 12 August 2026 (PIB 2291775 and 2298218), may carry newer figures; this blog could not open them. The figures are scattered across budget documents and press reports, and none comes with a year-by-year table of releases and spending from the Department of Science and Technology, which is the problem the first proposal below addresses.
Timeline
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Dec 2020 | DRDO links two of its Hyderabad laboratories with quantum key distribution; its Young Scientists Laboratory builds a quantum random number generator |
| Dec 2021 | Army opens a Quantum Laboratory at the Military College of Telecommunication Engineering (MCTE), Mhow, with support from the National Security Council Secretariat: QKD, quantum computing and post-quantum cryptography |
| Feb 2022 | DRDO and IIT Delhi run QKD over more than 100 km of commercial fibre between Prayagraj and Vindhyachal |
| Aug 2022 | Ministry of Defence says it will adopt QNu Labs’ 150 km QKD system, trialled with the Army through iDEX |
| Apr 2023 | Cabinet approves the National Quantum Mission: ₹6,003.65 crore for 2023-24 to 2030-31 |
| Aug 2024 | DRDO completes end-to-end tests of a 6-qubit superconducting processor |
| Sep 2024 | Army signs its eighth iDEX procurement contract, for QNu Labs’ QKD system, to replace algorithm-based encryption; NQM’s four thematic hubs are named |
| May 2025 | DRDO opens a Quantum Technology Research Centre |
| Jun 2025 | DRDO and IIT Delhi demonstrate entanglement-based QKD over 1 km of free space; the Army says MCTE’s post-quantum cryptography applications are being rolled out across its networks |
| Jan 2026 | Chief of Defence Staff releases the Military Quantum Mission Policy Framework |
| Apr 2026 | NQM reports a 1,000 km quantum-secure network, half its eight-year target of 2,000 km |
| Jul 2026 | DRDO completes military field trials of a fibre-based QKD system built with Taqbit Labs, Bengaluru |
| Sep 2026 | DRDO funds a startup to build India’s first 20 mK dilution refrigerator |
What would fix this
- Headquarters Integrated Defence Staff should publish an unclassified summary of the Military Quantum Mission Policy Framework: the milestones by pillar and year, and which service or agency owns each, so progress can be followed without disclosing capabilities.
- The Department of Science and Technology should publish National Quantum Mission allocations, releases and spending by year and by hub, in one table each year, so the gap between the ₹6,003.65 crore outlay and actual spending is not pieced together from press reports.
- The National Security Council Secretariat and CERT-In should set a dated plan for moving government and critical-infrastructure networks to post-quantum cryptography, as the Army has begun to do for its own networks.
- DRDO should report the milestones of its quantum Technology Development Fund projects (the dilution refrigerator, the gyroscope and the RF sensor) against their contracted dates, so the move from imported to Indian hardware can be tracked.
These are proposals from this blog, not recommendations any agency has adopted.
Sources and caveats
Release titles and dates: PIB, from this blog’s PIB index (Ministry of Defence releases 1679349, 1684381, 1786012, 1800648, 1851732, 2049356, 2131757, 2136702, 2217374, 2314536; Cabinet 1917888; Ministry of Science and Technology 2060438, 2121845, 2223187, 2250162, 2273706, 2291775, 2298218). PIB pages could not be opened from this blog’s tools, so details are from coverage of those releases: All India Radio, Raksha Anirveda, Janes, The Register, Aviation & Defence Universe, The Quantum Insider, The Week (PTI), Army Technology, ThePrint, Business Standard, UNI, Deccan Chronicle and Quantum Computing Report. Sensing contracts: everythingRF and IDRW (trade press). July 2026 QKD trials: The Week, Janes and The Hitavada, 15–16 July 2026. Funding: Policy Circle, Outlook Business, Quantum India Brief and February 2026 budget coverage (CXO Xperts); the release figures are as reported from the Lok Sabha answer of 4 February 2026. These figures need checking against the Parliament answers and the Expenditure Budget. The framework’s full text is not public. Stages in the first table are this blog’s assessment.
About this article: Researched, written and edited by Umashankar Triplicane Dwarakanathan, with AI research assistance; every figure is meant to trace to the primary source cited. See the Editorial Policy for how sourcing, AI use and corrections work.
