Quantum-secure communication and AI-driven automation are transforming nuclear command systems, presenting both enhanced resilience and new risks.
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In May 2025, scientists at Purdue University completed an experiment demonstrating a quantum-secure communication system integrated within an operational nuclear reactor (PUR-1, Purdue University Reactor Number One, a research nuclear reactor under the purview of Purdue University). This milestone confirmed that quantum key distribution (QKD) can enable real-time, latency-sensitive nuclear control systems, marking a significant step toward securing critical infrastructure against emerging threats. The contemporary intrigue of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation cannot be removed from this system. Automated controls within quantum-secured reactor systems can enable faster and more timely responses. This demonstration represents a critical turning point in the nuclear domain, reshaping the dynamics of nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) systems.
Quantum key distribution (QKD) can enable real-time, latency-sensitive nuclear control systems, marking a significant step toward securing critical infrastructure against emerging threats.
Quantum computers increase the risk of breaking essential cryptographic protocols that safeguard secret communications and launch systems, but they also offer an avenue for secure communication. This contradiction presents a solution to the quantum technologies' ability to destabilise existing security models by providing an alternative security structure and communication channel. Along with the security offered by quantum encryption and communication channels, AI is expected to offer enhanced threat management and response capabilities.
NC3 systems today rely on these traditional crypto protocols to secure launch authentication through early-warning messages and high-security data links. If a fault-tolerant quantum computer were to come online, it could potentially decrypt classified military communications, bypass nuclear controls, and even generate fake command orders, thereby compromising deterrence strategies and undermining national security. Although massive-scale quantum computers are still about a decade away, security threats are present now. Adversaries can now start collecting encrypted data and decrypt it in the future when quantum capabilities become available, a method termed ‘harvest now, decrypt later’.
Aside from technical vulnerabilities, the advent of quantum computing poses strategic threats to nuclear stability. The NC3 landscape is being shaped not only by quantum technologies but by a confluence of automation and AI. Reliable and timely communications among political leaders, military commands, and strategic platforms are the foundation of nuclear deterrence. Compromise of these lines could be disastrous. In-time decryption of NC3 signals could allow an adversary to intercept or forge nuclear commands. At the same time, quantum-assisted cyberattacks would compromise satellite feeds and early warning systems, increasing the likelihood of false alarms or delayed threat responses. Additionally, the development of such capabilities ahead of other competitive powers may deprive its competitors of retaliatory strength, enhancing any power imbalance and moving the nuclear powers to a ‘launch-on-warning’ position.
The NC3 landscape is being shaped not only by quantum technologies but by a confluence of automation and AI.
As automation and AI technologies advance, the launch-on-warning strategy will increase reliance on AI and autonomous systems in National Command, Control, and Communications (NC3), enhancing threat detection and enabling automated responses. This shift could accelerate decision-making processes and mitigate delays associated with human intervention. However, automating such systems can result in unanticipated escalation or miscalculations, and AI algorithms may lack transparency, particularly if they can launch nuclear strikes without human supervision.
While quantum computing threatens to break today’s encryption, QKD offers a promising defence, allowing detection of any attempt to intervene in the encrypted exchange. When applied in nuclear security or any critical infrastructure, these will ensure that QKD-secured links between national command centres, submarines, and missile silos have an impenetrable communication system. Critical data will be protected. Sensitive information about critical infrastructure, such as nuclear plants and chemical or biological labs, can be shared securely over quantum-encrypted networks.. Finally, QKD will also help secure communication on arms-control monitoring and verification data, ensuring classified information remains protected while detecting potential threats to the communication channel.
Sensitive information about critical infrastructure, such as nuclear plants and chemical or biological labs, can be shared securely over quantum-encrypted networks.
While no country has directly operated QKD communication channels for security yet, the European Union (EU), China, and the United States (US) have made some progress in this field. The EU has launched the EuroQCI (European Quantum Communication Infrastructure) project to enhance strategic communication. China’s Micius satellite has also demonstrated intercontinental quantum-encrypted communication in 2017, opening possibilities for secure nuclear diplomacy. The US has its Quantum Communication Network and a strategy towards incorporating quantum communication, infrastructure, and inter-agency harmonisation. The US has also incorporated AI into its national security approach, focusing on rapid threat analysis and expanding into secure communications.
India is rapidly transitioning from quantum research to implementation under its National Quantum Mission (2023–2031), which allocates over INR 6,000 crore to develop indigenous capabilities in quantum communication and encryption. Key milestones include the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi's field demonstrations of entanglement-based QKD, including successful free-space trials.
India’s defence forces have taken concrete steps; the Navy became the first Indian service to deploy QKD at scale, and in September 2024, the Army secured contracts for QKD-enabled long-range military communication (approximately 200 km). Regulatory developments include export controls aligned with the Wassenaar Arrangement, as well as national standards being developed by the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN), the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
India is rapidly transitioning from quantum research to implementation under its National Quantum Mission (2023–2031), which allocates over INR 6,000 crore to develop indigenous capabilities in quantum communication and encryption.
Globally, the urgency of ‘Q-Day’, when quantum computers could break today's encryption, has catalysed action. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)’s Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) standards are being adopted across the US and its allies. China and the US have also launched quantum communication satellites to future-proof NC3 systems.
India’s MeitY and DST must aim to adopt the following to remain in the race towards Q-Day:
Quantum computing's potential, as well as the added threat of automation, undermines current encryption and may disrupt decades of strategic stability. Nonetheless, the capacity of these technologies to develop intrinsically secure communications and enhanced response systems presents a historic opportunity to re-establish trust in NC3 systems. It is now crucial to take pre-emptive action to modify nuclear policy and infrastructure, or risk being unprepared for a new era of strategic uncertainty.
Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.
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Shravishtha Ajaykumar is an Associate Fellow at the Centre for Security, Strategy, and Technology. Her research areas include Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) strategy ...
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