Breakthrough SA research promises quantum leap into our global future

Daily Maverick

3 days ago

This will be an entirely novel way of managing quantum information and will have revolutionary implications – we will be able to quickly solve very hard problems in fields such as chemistry, pharmacology, logistics, finance and many more.
'Beam me up, Scotty!' A brave new South African-led study aims to solve exactly the quantum physics challenge that the fictional starship Enterprise's transporter system is designed to overcome.
Unfortunately, we're not looking to dematerialise people and put them together again somewhere else, which certainly would be very exciting. What we envisage, however, is far more fundamental: we're going to show people the future – and unlock South Africa's development potential.
To make the nascent field of harnessing quantum entanglement viable, we – myself, a vibrant, young team of South African researchers and select international partners, including leading scientists from China's Huzhou University, France's Sorbonne University and Australia's Monash University – aim to practically demonstrate an entirely novel way for managing quantum information.
This will have revolutionary implications: with quantum computing, which will be exponentially more powerful than current technology, we will be able to quickly solve very hard problems in fields such as chemistry, pharmacology, logistics, finance and many more.
We will also be able to truly harness artificial intelligence – without the unsustainably huge energy price (environmentally speaking) that we currently pay for it. In quantum communications, it will enable long-distance links, essential for a global quantum network that is fundamentally secure.
Our quantum physics research, which stands to offer manifest benefits for humanity, is generously funded to the tune of R2.5-million by the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust through its annual Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award, for which I am the 2024 co-recipient.
SA a potential global leader
I envisage South Africa, which has no Silicon Valley of its own, becoming a leader in quantum software – much like apps on cellphones, but harnessing quantum technology. I see us creating a quantum-literate workforce that will realise our country's immense human potential and create human and economic opportunities that we cannot yet imagine.
Allow me to explain.
The big picture to consider is quantum as a new paradigm for future technologies. In the past decade or two, humanity has begun to harness the spooky property of quantum theory that had hitherto remained elusive: entanglement – a form of connecting particles no matter how far apart they are, enabling faster computing, more secure communications and measuring with higher precision.
This is an extremely valuable resource, and I (and others around the world) believe that this promises an entirely new economy for our planet, one based on quantum technologies.
South Africa has a national quantum strategy – into which significant resources are being poured – to not only move us into the quantum economy we believe is coming, but also position our country as a major global player.
It's a very exciting time to be involved in this field; indeed, 2025 is Unesco's International Year of Quantum Science and Technology to celebrate the progress made so far, but also to highlight how quantum can be used to address grand societal challenges.
Entanglement
At the heart of this promise is an aspect of quantum called entanglement that physicist Albert Einstein himself deplored; in fact, he called it 'spooky'.
Entanglement is the unusual, but proven idea that two particles can be connected and if you do something to one of them, this will be replicated in the other, regardless of the distance between them (in theory, they can be infinitely far apart).
Entanglement holds enormous potential for the nascent field of quantum computing. Unlike in classical computing in which particles have only the binary, one-bit value of 1 or 0, in quantum computing, entanglement will allow particles to be 1 and 0 at the same time.
This means that you can do multiple things with one bit (in quantum computing, called a qubit). Imagine going through a maze using classical computing: every time you arrive at a junction, you have to turn left or right, 1 or 0, and then choose again at the next junction and so on.
With quantum computing, you can turn left and right, 1 and 0, and map out the maze's pathways many times faster.
Entanglement is also fantastic for communications. Modern cryptography works on the principle of mathematical complexity – that a code is sufficiently complex that it cannot quickly be cracked – but it doesn't guarantee security. The Enigma machine of World War 2 proved that if your adversary has a machine you're unaware of, they can break your code.
Quantum computers will be able to decipher mathematical codes with ease. However, entanglement offers an exciting solution, too: if I send you a particle and retain its entangled partner particle, and I change something about my particle, it will similarly change your particle. But if someone tries to intercept that message, according to the laws of physics, it will be destroyed; this will enable all communications to be fundamentally secure.
Decay
But, of course, all of this is easier said than done. This is because entanglement is very fragile and it begins to decay because of 'noise' – essentially, various kinds of disturbance – for example, temperature or atmospheric disturbances.
To date, our efforts have been expended on trying to preserve entanglement from decay, and we have had very limited success in this regard. Think about Scotty in Star Trek, trying desperately to lock on to Captain Kirk and beam him safely back to the Enterprise; sometimes his transporter's capabilities have been tested by energy fluctuations, gravitational anomalies and other kinds of external forces.
But this is where the Star Trek analogy ends. We need an alternative strategy, one that abandons the notion of preserving entanglement and asks: can we exchange information even though the link is decaying?
Let's rather think of entanglement like a cellphone battery. Even though the battery is losing charge, the phone's apps will continue to work fully while there is power; the apps' functionality won't deteriorate along with the loss of charge. We have an idea on how to make this metaphor a reality: quantum topology.
Essentially, topology allows us to ignore how something looks and instead focus on a feature of that 'something' that does not change. A famous example of topology is that of a coffee mug and a doughnut, which both feature one hole. Physically, they are very different, but topologically, they are the same.
With the traditional alphabet (albeit including numbers), I would send you a 1 for the mug or a 0 for the doughnut, and you would receive the communication accordingly. Topologically, however, it doesn't matter how noisy the channel is, and if what I sent you has been deformed in any way, you would just count the number of holes in the information you receive: 0 for no holes, 1 for one hole, 2 for two holes, and so on.
This represents a topological alphabet formed out of the topology of things rather than how they look. It has two fantastic features: it is an infinitely large alphabet, not just 0 and 1, and most importantly, it is intrinsically invariant to noise: it doesn't care how much the communication is distorted.
In the quantum world, this would mean that the communication would be preserved, even though the entanglement is weakening.
In our seminal academic paper in 2024, we showed that entanglement is inherently topological. What my team and I must now do is create a topological toolkit, with tools showing that topology can be used to communicate, regardless of entanglement decaying.
What Einstein really disliked about entanglement is that, without measurement, objects are not real. The Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award will allow us to dispel his doubt and unlock myriad possibilities that will largely only be revealed as we go.
Spooky, indeed. DM
Professor Andrew Forbes is a Distinguished Professor in the Structured Light Laboratory at the University of the Witwatersrand's School of Physics, and a co-recipient of the 2024 Harry Oppenheimer Fellowship Award, presented on 15 July 2025.
Established in 1958 by Harry Oppenheimer as an endowment trust to honour the memory of his father, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (OMT) has recently undergone a strategic shift to better serve the sectors it supports, namely education, social justice and arts and culture.