While the world is discussing whether generative AI is reaching its limit, in the labs of the United States, Japan, Germany, and China there is a new technological race emerging: quantum computing.
The quantum industry is just starting to define how it will be commercially deployed. For the giants of the industry, this represents more talent, resources, and corporate attention. However in Latin America, it has the potential to be an opportunity emerging as a door that wasn’t open yet.
This week at Upgrade 2026, the annual innovation event organized by NTT Research, Dr. Tetsuomi Sogawa was named as new director for the Physics and Informatics Lab (PHI Lab), the area dedicated to developing the next generation of computing based on light instead of electricity.
NTT Research is a subsidiary branch of the multinational NTT, dedicated to research and development of new technologies. With access to at least 3B USD and 21,500 registered patents, the operation works with several simultaneous fronts. The fundamental research happens in the PHI Lab that is now run by Dr. Sogawa, where devices based on a technology called Lithium Niobate on Insulators are developed.
In practical terms, these are chips that process information using light instead of electricity. They are essential because the current silicon chips consume more and more energy as AI models become larger, and the photonics promises faster systems that use up only a fraction of that energy.
In paralel, in November 2025, NTT formalized an alliance with the japanese startup OptQC to develop quantum optical scalable computers, with the goal of reaching a million qubits by 2030. The difference from other approaches is important: these systems operate at room temperature, without the extreme cryogenic refrigeration that makes most current quantum computers hard and expensive to scale.
The profile of Dr. Sogawa, someone who has years of experience taking basic research to the applied world, fits the strategic direction. NTT also launched Scale Academy this week, their new incubator dedicated to turning scientific discoveries into commercial products, which president and CEO of NTT Research, Kazu Gomi, called “NTT Research 2.0”.
The Bridge That Connects Latin America
The piece that connects frontier research with the region already exists. In March 2025, NTT DATA and Kipu Quantum signed a partnership explicitly designed to bring quantum computation to the latinamerican industry.
Though the focus of the alliance is not precisely academic, it is commercial. Banks, insurers, logistics, and retail are some of the sectors that are mentioned in the alliance as targets. “For NTT DATA it’s an honor to collaborate with Kipu Quantum. As a leading company in the field of quantum solutions, we will propose projects and platform services to diverse industries in Ibero-America”, said Juan Jose Miranda, Director of Innovation at NTT DATA, when the partnership was announced.
Then there’s the reading from the quantum side. “The time has come that from Chile, the creative, productive, and technological rhythm of quantum computing for Latin America is established, for the academic as well as the industrial world,” added Professor Enrique Solano, Co-CEO and co-founder of Kipu Quantum.
The opportunity
Quantum computing does not have defined winners yet. Differently from cloud services, where competitors are AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud, the quantum map is still being drawn.
Companies like Lightmatter and PsiQuantum attract multimillion valuations to take photonic chips into the market. NTT and OptQC are working on a million qubits by 2030. And startups like Kipu Quantum, founded in 2021 in Germany, are already building the necessary partnerships to operate in Latin America, including their agreement with the Uruguayan Quantum-South, focused on logistic optimization. That’s where the opportunity lies for entrepreneurs, funds, and governments in Latin America.
This means that the decisions taken now by governments, universities, and Latin American corporations regarding computing infrastructure, technical talent, regulation, and international partnerships, may have a heavy weight on where this technology lands in the region.
Quantum computing is leaving the lab, and for the first time in a while, there’s a table where Latin America can take a place before they are assigned to someone else.
