Quantum technologies are gaining traction worldwide, so much so that 2025 was designated the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology by the United Nations - celebrating 100 years since the initial development of quantum mechanics.
What’s more, according to the 2026 McKinsey Technology Quantum Technology Monitor, quantum technology is no longer confined to theory and academic pursuit. Quantum computing, quantum communication and quantum sensing together have the potential to generate up to $97 billion in revenue worldwide by 2035, it predicts.
And this is just the start, with McKinsey Technologies estimating that by 2040, the total quantum technology market could reach $198 billion.
Pharmaceuticals, chemicals and quantum
Just about every industrial sector is likely to see some upside from this. But chemicals, along with pharmaceuticals and medicinal products are amongst those that look set to make early and meaningful gains from quantum.
“There is significant impact potential for pharma and chemicals as we believe that these industries, along with financial services, will be at the forefront of adoption and use,” says Henning Soller, co-author of the 2026 McKinsey Technology Quantum Technology Monitor and leader of McKinsey’s Quantum Tech Practice.
“These sectors have the technology budgets, but they also have the use cases that will be the relevant in the short term. They also have the technological backbone in order to integrate those computing capabilities effectively,” Soller adds.
Integration is the key word here. “We don’t believe that companies will suddenly move from doing everything classically and move to quantum tomorrow, this is not realistic. So much has gone into the development of databases and algorithms in the chemical and pharma space it is simply not realistic to abandon the classical approach,” says Soller.
Already quantum is driving interesting collaborations. One such example has seen AstraZeneca share results of work completed in partnership with IonQ, a quantum computing and networking company, AWS and Nvidia. During 2025, they demonstrated a quantum-accelerated computational chemistry workflow which they said has the potential to power world-changing innovation in health care, life sciences and chemistry.
“We expect to see more collaborations between chemical players and quantum companies. The same applies to pharma,” says Martina Gschwendtner, a consultant at McKinsey & Company, co-author of the report and quantum physicist.
“Industry players bring the deep understanding of the problem, while quantum companies contribute the technical capabilities. Both sides are still building expertise, but the gap is closing and this will unlock the full value of quantum computing in these companies,” she says.
The full value is considerable, with McKinsey Technology Quantum Technology Monitoring Report indicating that quantum computing would unlock up to $400 billion in value, equal to some 12% of the projected industry gross sales in the pharmaceutical sector by 2035. The biggest impact for the pharmaceutical sector will be seen in R&D, with the advantages appearing across several areas including reduced time to market, the potential for personalised medicine and improvement in R&D productivity and efficiency.
“Quantum computing is particularly promising for R&D,” Gschwendtner says. “It can simulate complex chemical and biological processes more accurately and earlier in the development cycle, reducing reliance on the trial-and-error approaches. In chemicals this could translate into cost savings of 20-25% through shorter design cycles and less lab testing. In pharmaceuticals, it could significantly improve how targets and compounds are identified and screened, which is one of the most cost intensive parts of drug development.”
The cost of quantum
But with all the positive development, Soller concedes that there is still a cost curve to be navigated. “The cost curve for the current machines is not coming down, because we are currently in the phase of essentially scaling up the respective quantum machines. If you look at the current machines on the quantum side, you be looking at costs in the region of $30 million to $50 million. This could be even higher if you look at some of the photonic machines.
“But we believe that as the budgets for the individual companies will go up, with some businesses set to invest $10 million each year in quantum for the next few years, the cost of the machines will go up. This rise will come simply because machines will scale in terms of their complexity.”
Soller explains that while the technology is being demonstrated at the commercial scale, there is still work to be done in managing the complexity and engineering of the machines. This complexity is among the drivers behind the collaborative efforts which have been seen in the chemical and pharmaceutical sectors, he says.
Quantum in Europe
While the costs remain significant, it is notable that the McKinsey Technology report indicates Europe’s momentum in adoption of quantum technology.
“Many European companies started exploring quantum computing early, as part of their innovation programmes, often driven by strong links to academia,” says Gschwendtner. “There is also a clear ambition not to fall behind on another critical technology as happened with AI. As a result, companies have formed partnerships early to better understand the economic potential.”
Gschwendtner adds that while adoption is strong in Europe, a lot of the technology development is happening in the US.
With Europe looking to drive economic growth by supporting technological start-ups, could quantum technologies boost these ambitions? Soller believes that this will have to be a phased approach. “In terms of SMEs participating in the current quantum growth, this is an interesting question, because what we see at the moment is that at least the SMEs who have something to offer that is related to the supply chain on the quantum side are essentially quite actively looking at how they can reposition themselves to participate.
“This is what we are seeing in the current investments on the quantum side. For example, players that were focused on quantum sensing or communications are now pivoting to quantum computing. There are a couple of reasons for this. Number one, these SMEs see quite significant attractiveness with respect to the market that is available in terms of selling their solutions, and second, they are positioning themselves to become more interesting to investors,” he says. However, SMEs considering adopting quantum to support their R&D will need to collaborate.
“The actual customers of quantum solutions are almost exclusively large-scale corporates. But we are seeing that there are a few SME-focused programmes, specifically in the European Union, that are aimed at allowing SMEs to access quantum capabilities,” Soller notes.
But, with quantum technology now heading towards the mainstream for the world’s biggest and most innovative companies, perhaps new solutions for some of the world’s most pressing challenges may just be beyond the horizon.
Further reading
- New catalysts can take 20 years to develop. This project wants to do it in five
- 25 deep tech innovations that could shape the future
- Quantum batteries are even stranger than you might expect
- Why quantum computing matters to chemical companies
- The global biopharma race is getting serious
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