Systemic flaws in quantum hardware exposed: structural limits and corporate control of quantum computing revealed
Original framing: “Quantum circuit test finally exposes what has been warping performance” — Phys.org
Marginalized voices in quantum computing—such as Black physicists in the U.S. facing discrimination in STEM pipelines or Indigenous researchers in Canada fighting for land rights tied to quantum infrastructure—are systematically excluded from leadership roles. Women, who make up only 20% of quantum computing PhDs, are often sidelined in favor of 'brilliant jerk' narratives that valorize toxic masculinity in tech. Global South researchers, despite contributions like Shoucheng Zhang’s topological insulators, are rarely cited in corporate-driven quantum discourse.
The quantum computing narrative, as framed by Phys.
org and corporate-funded research, is a microcosm of extractive technoscience: it obscures structural flaws (decoherence, energy waste, colonial mineral supply chains) behind a veil of inevitability, while sidelining Indigenous epistemologies, feminist critiques, and Global South innovators. Historically, this mirrors the transistor’s militarized origins and Silicon Valley’s monopolistic turn, suggesting quantum computing will reproduce these inequities unless actively dismantled. The trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of 'quantum supremacy' claims—how a technology dependent on rare earth mining, cryogenic excess, and patriarchal STEM cultures is framed as neutral progress. Solution pathways must therefore center decolonization (via Global South-led consortia), thermodynamic ethics (via Indigenous land stewardship), feminist pedagogy (via collaborative knowledge-building), and post-capitalist commons (via community-controlled quantum networks). Without these interventions, quantum computing will remain a tool of corporate and military control, not liberation.