A guide to the World Economic Forum's quantum computing governance principles: the seven shared values, nine themes and what they mean for cryptography.
Values and themes in the WEF principles
Why govern a technology before it matures?
Quantum computers still cannot do most of what headlines promise, but the people building them argue that the rules should be discussed now, before the technology is deployed at scale. The World Economic Forum convened a multi-stakeholder community to draft governance principles, published in January 2022. They are guidance, not law, and they are meant to be a shared starting point for governments, companies, researchers and civil society.
The document is organised in layers: core values that apply across the board, themes that group related issues, and under each theme goals, opportunities, risks, principles and suggested actions.
The seven core values
Common good: the capabilities should be used to benefit humanity. Accountability: there must be mechanisms for human accountability in how quantum computing is designed and used, and the community shares responsibility for not inadvertently endorsing misuse. Inclusiveness: a broad, diverse range of stakeholders should help define what counts as harmful or beneficial use. Equitability: the technology should be equitable by design and fairly distributed, with attention to vulnerable groups. Non-maleficence: use it safely and ethically, without exposing people to harm. Accessibility: make the technology and the knowledge to understand it widely available. Transparency: users, developers and regulators are open about their purposes and intentions.
The nine themes
1. Transformative capabilities covers using quantum computing for societal benefit and avoiding harmful applications. 2. Access to hardware infrastructure addresses who can use scarce, expensive machines. 3. Open innovation encourages collaboration and shared research. 4. Creating awareness is about public and leadership understanding. 5. Workforce development and capability-building deals with skills. 6. Cybersecurity addresses the threat to encryption. 7. Privacy considers personal data in a quantum world. 8. Standardisation promotes common technical and ethical standards. 9. Sustainability considers the environmental footprint.
The cybersecurity theme in detail
For blockchain and identity readers, this is the most relevant theme. Much of today’s internet security relies on public-key cryptography, the maths behind digital signatures, secure web connections and wallets. A sufficiently powerful quantum computer could break some of these methods, which would let attackers forge signatures and impersonate people or organisations. The document also notes that blockchain networks could be destabilised: it mentions the potential advantage a quantum algorithm known as Grover’s algorithm could give to proof-of-work mining, and attacks on the authentication layer of other consensus mechanisms.
Its principles include relying on international standards and scientific research to develop and test quantum-resistant methods, promoting open quantum-resistant algorithms and protocols, and adopting crypto-agility, meaning systems built so that cryptographic algorithms can be swapped in a plug-and-play way when attacks emerge. Suggested actions include prioritising quantum-resistant cybersecurity, running awareness programmes for leaders, securing communications following standards bodies’ guidance and exploring quantum-native telecom infrastructure using quantum random number generators and quantum key distribution.
What to take from it
If you build or run identity, signing or ledger systems, the practical lesson is design for change. Keep a record of which algorithms you use, avoid hard-wiring one into a protocol you cannot update, and follow the post-quantum standards that standards bodies publish. Our digital identity and Quantum Computing pages cover the surrounding concepts.
The principles also show how governance documents are structured: values first, themes second, then concrete actions. That structure is easy to reuse when thinking about AI, drones or any other emerging technology.
Sources
- Quantum Computing Governance Principles. World Economic Forum, January 2022.
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