Why Quantum, Why Now
I’m writing this series because our next leap won’t come from a bigger server, a flashier model, or another dashboard. It will come from how we think.
Classical thinking prizes certainty, separation, and control. Useful…..until it isn’t. The world we’re actually living in is entangled: climate, economy, digital systems, whakapapa, and the daily choices we make. Quantum mechanics gives language to that reality. Not as a metaphor to romanticise science, but as a discipline that shows how uncertainty can be measured, how relationships carry information, and how observation changes outcomes.
Here’s my why.
I grew up learning to hold many worlds at once, marae and boardroom, emergency operations and long-horizon strategy, code and community. Te ao Māori taught me that everything has whakapapa: a lineage of relationships that give context, obligation, and meaning. Quantum science, in its own way, points to the primacy of relationships too. When particles are entangled, what happens “here” is not independent of “there”. That’s not mysticism. That’s physics, and a reminder that design choices in one place ripple through systems we may never see.
Over the next year, quantum computing will keep advancing, and AI will keep scaling. Some claims will be real, many will be marketing. In the middle of the hype, leaders need a compass. This series is that compass. It will move from first-principles physics to practical governance: post-quantum cryptography for our health records; data architectures that can prove what’s true; standards and audits that put manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga into code; the critical infrastructure we must invest in – power, photonics, chips, and cables, to keep Aotearoa resilient and sovereign.
We’ll also talk about inclusion. If quantum becomes another elite layer, locked in labs, patents, and non-disclosure, then we will widen the digital divide we keep promising to close. The opposite is possible. We can teach rangatahi the core ideas early. We can create culturally-led pathways into high-end science and engineering. We can build public-facing explanations that don’t patronise. And we can insist that the benefits – clinical breakthroughs, cleaner industry, safer systems…are distributed, not hoarded.
Most importantly, we’ll put values to work. Technologies don’t choose their uses; people and policies do. Te Tiriti o Waitangi gives Aotearoa New Zealand a constitutional anchor for shared decision-making. Data Sovereignty gives us a standard for consent, control, and stewardship. Emergency management teaches us that resilience is built before the sirens go off. All three belong in quantum-era governance.
If we do this well, we don’t just get faster algorithms. We get wiser systems: infrastructures that are transparent, auditable, and kind. Economies that reward stewardship, not extraction. Leadership that understands uncertainty is not a threat to be crushed but a landscape to be navigated – with discipline, humility, and courage.
That’s where we’re heading. Haere whakamua. Onwards.
Practice (start this week):
Stand up a crypto inventory: where do you use RSA/ECC? Flag long-life data.
Establish a lightweight Algorithm & Model Register (yes, even spreadsheets count).
Plan a community kōrero on data rights and future tech, rangatahi at the centre.