Israel has officially entered the race to become one of the first countries in the world to build its own home-grown quantum computer.
Jerusalem has invited bids from global technology companies to establish what it calls a national “Blue and White” quantum computing platform, a machine that could solve complex problems millions of times faster than today’s most powerful supercomputers.
The move is designed to ensure that sensitive defence, intelligence and financial systems run on hardware and software that is under full Israeli control, rather than relying on imported technology.
In building such a computer, Israel would position itself as a serious “middle-power” player globally, behind the US and China, the acknowledged leaders, and second-tier nations such as the UK, Japan and Canada, but alongside South Korea, Switzerland, Denmark and Saudi Arabia, which are also pursuing "sovereign" quantum computers.
The Prime Minister’s Office, together with Israel’s National AI Directorate, published tenders last month to build Project Nexus, which it describes as a “locally produced quantum computer”.
The project is part of the wider National AI Programme, which aims to invest jointly in the intertwined technologies of AI and quantum computing.
At the launch of the programme, Prime Minister Netanyahu said a quantum computer would be part of the infrastructure Israel needed to become a global technology power.
Erez Eskel, director of the National AI Directorate, added: “The steps we are launching now are a central phase in securing our sovereign infrastructure while continuing to focus our efforts on the State of Israel’s comparative advantages for long-term global leadership.”
Quantum computers harness the counter-intuitive laws of quantum physics - the realm of science shaped by Albert Einstein - to analyse billions of possibilities simultaneously rather than one after another.
That means they could theoretically do anything from cracking protective encryption on bank accounts, to designing new drugs and materials in months rather than years.
Israel is already a significant player globally in quantum. The Israeli Quantum Computing Center, which opened at Tel Aviv University in June 2024, runs multiple quantum processors using imported components and hardware developed outside Israel.
But a system with chips, control electronics, cryogenics and software all designed and built in Israel would reduce the risk of espionage, sabotage or any future export restrictions imposed by countries that currently supply Israel with components.
Israel’s government has yet to publish a timeline or a specific price tag for Project Nexus.
It has said, however, that the tender forms part of a broader national AI and quantum strategy worth about NIS 5 billion a year (£1.1 billion).
It has also said that a separate NIS 100 million pot (£23 million) is being used to expand national quantum infrastructure.
Some experts say useful, large-scale quantum computers are still many years away. Others predict that major breakthroughs could come by the end of the decade and warn of “Q-day”, the point at which encryption protecting global finance and state secrets becomes vulnerable, sometime in the 2030s.
Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister and a technology entrepreneur, is now a board member of Israeli quantum-computing startup Quantum Source.
He told The Quantum Insider, a specialist publication covering the global quantum-technology industry, that a fully functional quantum computer capable of delivering major breakthroughs could arrive within four or five years.
“The moment Q-day arrives, effectively all the current encryption methods are deemed useless, and we’re vulnerable,” he said.
Compared with Israel, the UK government is spending far more on quantum computing, with a commitment of up to £2 billion over the next decade.
Like Israel, the UK also aims to develop sovereign quantum capability.
But its strategy is more pragmatic, combining domestic research and industry with the procurement of systems from international suppliers. Israel’s Project Nexus, by contrast, is explicitly intended to create a quantum platform produced in Israel.
Israel has long been a pioneer in emerging technologies. It was the first country in the Middle East, and one of the first in the world, to build and operate an electronic computer – WEIZAC, built at the Weizmann Institute of Science, which began operating in 1954.
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