The transformative role of Telecommunications and Information Communication Technologies (ICT) has long been witnessed as a precursor of the scientific progress and economic growth in the modern world. Today, like never-before, we are witnessing a pervasive diffusion of ultra-broadband fixed-mobile connectivity, the deployment of Cloud-native 5G network and service platforms and a wide adoption of Artificial Intelligence.

This Digital Transformation is surely bringing far reaching techno-economic impacts on our Society. Nevertheless, this transformation is still laying its foundations on Electronics and the impending end of Moore’s Law: therefore, a rethink of the ways of computing and communications has initiated already.

Quantum technologies are one of the new ways of performing these functions. In fact, a first quantum revolution started decades ago and has already brought quantum technologies in our everyday life. In fact, there are many devices available today which are fundamentally based on the effects of quantum mechanics: these include transistor, lasers, LEDs and other semi-conductor devices, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Positron Emission Tomography (PET) systems, etc.

Today, a second revolution is underway leveraging on quantum technologies which aim at going further in manipulating quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement. In the former (superposition), particles show or have multiple states until they are observed, in the latter (entanglement), the properties of quantum systems — such as particles’ spin and polarization — can be intertwined together. This potential second revolution is expected to lead to new future applications in Quantum Communication, Quantum Computation, Quantum Sensing and Metrology, and Quantum Simulation.

This paper provides an overview of threats, challenges and the business opportunities brought by Quantum technologies on Operators’ networks and services infrastructures.