[Quantum revolution Simona-Mirela Miculescu opening the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris in February. Credit: A M Yiannouli"> Simona-Mirela Miculescu opening the IYQST
Quantum revolution Simona-Mirela Miculescu opening the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris in February. Credit: A M Yiannouli](https://cerncourier.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/CCMayJun25_FN_IYQ.jpg)
Last June, the United Nations and UNESCO proclaimed 2025 the International Year of Quantum (IYQ): here is why it really matters.
Everything started a century ago, when scientists like Niels Bohr, Max Planck and Wolfgang Pauli, but also Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger and many others, came up with ideas that would revolutionise our description of the subatomic world. This is when physics transitioned from being a deterministic discipline to a mostly probabilistic one, at least when we look at subatomic scales. Brave predictions of weird behaviours started to attract the attention of an increasingly larger part of the scientific community, and continued to appear decade after decade. The most popular ones being: particle entanglement, the superposition of states and the tunnelling effect. These are also some of the most impactful quantum effects, in terms of the technologies that emerged from them.
One hundred years on, and the scientific community is somewhat acclimatised to observing and measuring the probabilistic nature of particles and quanta. Lasers, MRI and even sliding doors would not exist without the pioneering studies on quantum mechanics. However, it’s common opinion that today we are on the edge of a second quantum revolution.
“International years” are proclaimed to raise awareness, focus global attention, encourage cooperation and mobilise resources towards a certain topic or research domain. The International Year of Quantum also aims to reverse-engineer the approach taken with artificial intelligence (AI), a technology that came along faster than any attempt to educate and prepare the layperson for its adoption. As we know, this is creating a lot of scepticism towards AI, which is often felt to be too complex and designed to generate a loss of control in its users.
The second quantum revolution has begun in recent years and, while we are rapidly moving from simply using the properties of the quantum world to controlling individual quantum systems, we are still at the dawn of future powerful applications. Some quantum sensors are already being used, and quantum cryptography is quite well understood. However, quantum bits need further studies and the exploration of other quantum fields has not even started yet.
Unlike AI, we still have time to push for a more inclusive approach to the development of new technology. During the international year, hundreds of events, workshops and initiatives will emphasise the role of global collaboration in the development of accessible quantum technologies. Through initiatives like the Quantum Technology Initiative (QTI) and the Open Quantum Institute (OQI), CERN is actively contributing not only to scientific research but also to promoting the advancement of its applications for the benefit of society.
The IYQ inaugural event was organised at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris in February 2025. At CERN, this year’s public event season is devoted to the quantum year, and will present talks, performances, a film festival and more. The full programme is available atvisit.cern/events.