China’s ‘father of quantum’ Pan Jianwei has ties to country’s defence industry, says US security firm
- Strider, a company that does corporate intelligence work, says it found files connecting top physicist to large contractors, including state-owned shipbuilder
- Pan plays down significance of documents, saying they do not mean he or his researchers were supporting development of military technology
The head of China’s quantum technology programme has links to Chinese defence contractors, even as he and his team maintain research ties with Western universities, according to documents identified by a US security company.
Pan Jianwei, a physicist known in China as the “father of quantum”, helps oversee the country’s efforts to harness quantum particles to build powerful computers and tools for processing information. Western countries are also hotly pursuing quantum research, which has potential commercial and military applications.
In an email exchange with The Washington Post this summer, Pan suggested that he and his university research team do not assist Chinese military efforts to develop quantum technology.
But Strider, a security company in Washington that does corporate intelligence work, has identified publicly available Chinese-language documents that connect Pan to large Chinese defence contractors.
Strider found that a state-owned shipbuilder of military and civilian vessels appointed Pan deputy director of its science and technology committee in 2017.
Strider also found that Pan last year signed an agreement committing his institution, the University of Science and Technology of China, to conduct quantum research with a state-owned defence contractor. MIT Technology Review first reported details of Strider’s findings.
