Africa’s Youth Could Power the Quantum Age -Peter Haynes

As governments and corporations pour billions into quantum technologies, Africa’s most competitive advantage may not be found in ultra-cold laboratories or specialised hardware, but in people: a young, fast-growing population with strong mathematical potential.

That was the argument advanced by Prof. Peter Haynes, Deputy President and Provost of Imperial College London, at the closing ceremony of the International Year of Quantum (IYQ), held at the Labadi Beach Hotel in Accra.

Led by UNESCO, the IYQ convened a broad international constituency—quantum scientists and engineers, universities, policymakers, industry leaders, educators, students, youth innovators, science communicators and the wider public. Events spanned both developed and developing countries, with a deliberate emphasis on Global South participation, skills development and the responsible deployment of quantum technologies.

Speaking under the theme “Preparing the World for a Quantum Future: Education, Skills and Youth-Led Innovation,” Prof. Haynes, a distinguished British computational physicist made a clear distinction between potential and preparedness. Africa’s capacity to contribute to quantum science, he said, is no longer the question. The real issue is whether global systems are structured to enable that contribution.

“Africa’s ability to contribute to quantum science and technology is not in doubt. The question is whether the global quantum ecosystem is ready to enable that contribution.”

A Skills Crunch Meets a Youth Boom

Quantum technologies ranging from computing and sensing to navigation and secure communications are expected to underpin the next wave of scientific and industrial transformation. Projections cited by Prof. Haynes suggest that global quantum-related employment could reach about 250,000 jobs by 2030, climbing to more than 800,000 by 2035.

For now, however, those opportunities are concentrated in a small group of established “quantum nations,” including the United States, United Kingdom, China, Germany, France and Japan. This concentration often described as the quantum divide raises the risk that much of the Global South will remain users of quantum technologies rather than shapers of them.

Timing, however, may work in Africa’s favour. By 2030, young Africans are expected to make up more than 40 percent of the world’s youth population, just as the global quantum sector confronts a widening skills shortage.

What is often experienced locally as anxiety about employment and career pathways, Prof. Haynes argued, should be recognised internationally as a strategic opportunity.

“What feels like pressure locally should be recognised globally as an opportunity of historic proportion,” he said.

 Beyond Physics: The Hidden Workforce of Quantum

Although quantum science is rooted in advanced physics and mathematics, Prof. Haynes emphasised that its real-world impact depends on a far wider skills base. Translating laboratory breakthroughs into deployable technologies requires engineers, materials scientists, software developers, data scientists, technicians and manufacturing specialists.

Drawing on lessons from the UK’s decade-long national quantum programme, he noted that early investments focused heavily on physicists, only later revealing bottlenecks in engineering and materials science. At Imperial College London, this gap led to the creation of the Materials for Quantum Network, linking materials researchers with quantum scientists to accelerate innovation.

He illustrated the challenge with an example from Imperial’s labs: a cold-atom interferometry-based quantum positioning system capable of operating underground, where GPS cannot. Scientifically impressive, the prototype is still roughly the size of an air-conditioning unit—an engineering problem, not a physics one.

For Africa, the implication is straightforward. Quantum strategies should be designed around existing strengths and industrial realities, rather than imported wholesale.

“Quantum strategies are strongest when they build on the full range of capabilities already present within a country or region,” Prof. Haynes said.

Learning to Leapfrog—Again

Africa’s experience with mobile money offers a useful parallel. By bypassing landline infrastructure, the continent leapfrogged directly into mobile finance. Prof. Haynes believes quantum presents a similar opening.

With an estimated 150 countries worldwide still lacking a national quantum strategy, African governments have room to design more integrated approaches ones that place skills, applications and entrepreneurship alongside fundamental research.

Importantly, quantum-related skills are highly portable. Problem-solving, coding, modelling, systems thinking and interdisciplinary collaboration are valuable not only in quantum labs, but across telecommunications, energy systems, space science and advanced manufacturing.

“Learning quantum-related skills is not a narrow bet,” he told students adding, “Even if you never work directly on a quantum device, those skills remain valuable across sectors and across careers.”

Startups, Not Superlabs

Job growth in the quantum economy, Prof. Haynes argued, is unlikely to be driven primarily by large national laboratories or multinational firms. Instead, much of it will come from startups and small-to-medium enterprises, particularly in quantum-adjacent software, modelling and sector-specific applications.

In Africa, the most immediate opportunities are likely to emerge downstream in healthcare, energy, logistics, finance and telecommunications rather than in the capital-intensive business of building quantum hardware from scratch.

Developments in Ghana point in this direction. A recently established optics and photonics laboratory, supported by the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE), illustrates how interdisciplinary capacity can strengthen quantum-relevant fields while also serving telecommunications and advanced manufacturing.

Such pathways, Prof. Haynes stressed, give young people agency. “You don’t just wait for opportunities, you help create them,” he said.

Education Alone Is Not Enough

Skills training, however, is only part of the equation. Prof. Haynes warned that education without supportive policy environments will not translate into jobs. Quantum ecosystems require long-term investment, informed regulation, public procurement strategies and investor confidence.

That, in turn, demands quantum literacy beyond the laboratory. At Imperial, this gap is addressed through a Quantum Fundamentals Programme aimed not at scientists, but at policymakers, regulators and investors whose decisions shape markets and institutions.

The objective, he explained, is not to turn officials into physicists, but to equip them to make informed choices that allow quantum industries and employment to grow.

 

 

For more news, join The Chronicle Newspaper channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VbBSs55E50UqNPvSOm2z

The post Africa’s Youth Could Power the Quantum Age -Peter Haynes appeared first on The Ghanaian Chronicle.

Read Full Story