New technologies have a history of reshaping C-suite responsibilities. Three years ago, few companies had a chief AI officer on the C-suite but, as the technology became embedded in the workplace, having a dedicated leader to set AI strategy and governance became a necessity for many organizations.

In 2023, just 11% of organizations had someone with a chief AI officer title, according to IBM’s Institute for Business Value. Now, 76% of organizations surveyed by IBM have a CAIO.

The complexity, opportunities, and risks posed by quantum computing means that it could be the next technology that requires its own dedicated role.

Quantum computers harness quantum mechanics to solve computational problems significantly faster than even the largest supercomputers. The technology has the potential to help design and test drugs, optimize airline and logistics routes, or sharpen financial risk modeling for banks.

In 2025, HSBC and IBM found that using a quantum computer made the bank up to 34% better at predicting whether its price would win a client’s bond trade. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca, AWS, and Nvidia worked with U.S. quantum company IonQ to cut the simulation time for a key drug-synthesis reaction roughly twentyfold.

Despite its potential business applications, the chief quantum officer title remains rare and is held mostly inside quantum companies. Swiss chipmaker SEALSQ appointed a chief quantum officer in August, while the innovation hub QuantumBasel’s chief quantum officer has been in place since April. Quantum Computing Inc.’s chief quantum officer was promoted to CEO last year.

At many of Europe’s largest companies, however, the job typically sits further down the organizational chart. HSBC created a group head of quantum technologies in 2021, BMW has a dedicated quantum computing team inside its IT organization, and Airbus has a central coordinator for quantum technologies.

Only 46% of CEOs have a team in place for identifying specific quantum use cases and the associated business value, according to a survey by IBM.

A board-level priority

Lionel Martellini, founding director of the EDHEC Quantum Institute in France, argues quantum deserves its own title and a direct line to the board. “Quantum should be a board-level discussion. It’s not an IT discussion,” he says.

His reasoning is that quantum carries both tremendous risk and opportunity. A powerful enough quantum computer could one day crack the encryption that keeps banking and business communications secure, exposing confidential deals, customer data, or payments.

Companies are being urged to start upgrading their security. Under an EU roadmap, operators of critical infrastructure, including energy and finance, are expected to move their highest-risk systems to quantum-safe encryption by the end of 2030.

At the same time, quantum could one day deliver commercial value in almost every industry, from pharmaceuticals and finance to logistics and energy. “Count the sectors, and that’s pretty much everyone,” Martellini says.

However, it does not fit neatly into any existing executive job, he adds. Someone must decide where to invest and, with regulatory deadlines looming, companies can’t wait until the technology matures.

“Anyone who’s not starting to prepare now is already late,” Martellini says. He expects most of the largest companies to have a designated quantum lead by 2030. Whether that person reports to the board is less certain. “That is not always the case,” he says, “but it definitely should be.”

Without senior ownership, quantum may struggle for funding. In a Fujitsu survey of 300 executives, 96% expected quantum to benefit their organization, yet 63% said they divert investment from it toward AI and other nearer-term technologies.

Martellini also warns against “quantum washing,” his term for overstated claims about the technology. One example is when a use case is chosen because it suits quantum hardware rather than because it makes economic sense. He advises companies to start with the business problem and decide whether classical or quantum computing would be best suited to solving it.

“It’s more important to understand what quantum cannot do for you than to understand what quantum can accomplish for you,” he says. That judgment is harder for boards to make with quantum than with AI, he adds, because most executives have experience of using AI.

A quantum executive is ‘overkill’

German utility company E.ON is exploring whether quantum can help it balance an increasingly complex grid and make more accurate financing decisions when setting energy contracts. Electric vehicles, heat pumps, and weather-dependent solar and wind are adding variables that make these calculations more complicated and demand harder to predict. The company is not yet using quantum hardware in operations.

E.ON has no chief quantum officer. Its program is overseen by Victoria Ossadnik, chief operating officer for digital and innovation, who holds a PhD in the field. She calls a dedicated quantum executive “overkill” for most businesses.

“It completely depends on the company,” she says. “For a non-tech company, quantum is a tool to solve technical problems.” In her view, this can be overseen by an existing technology leader, such as a chief digital officer.

“When you drive a car, you don’t need to understand how the different parts of your electric engine fit together,” she says. “As long as it gives reasonable results, it’s all good.”

Technology companies that run frontier research divisions are a different case, she says. Other businesses can treat quantum as “an emerging technology which starts to create value but is a very small part of what the company is doing.”

However, capitalizing on the potential of quantum computing still requires someone who is capable of turning a business problem into a mathematical equation that a quantum computer can run. “There are very few people in the world who can do that,” Ossadnik adds.

In E.ON’s case digital chief happens to be a quantum physicist. Few other companies have tech leaders with the same experience.

A title is not a mandate

“The interesting question isn’t whether quantum technology requires a specialist role with a job title,” argues Charles Radclyffe, CEO of AI startup EA and former head of emerging technology at Deutsche Bank. “It’s whether the risk is owned by somebody with the authority to act on it.”

Without ensuring someone has the power and resources to act, organizations risk making “an impressive-sounding appointment and no meaningful change in behavior,” Radclyffe adds.

He saw the same pattern in the early years of AI governance. “Organizations published principles, policies and ethics statements that sounded reassuring, but often lacked ownership, accountability or any mechanism for implementation. A chief quantum officer without a mandate, budget, and governance authority risks becoming the equivalent.”

If quantum poses a real risk, Radclyffe says, it should be managed like cyber, AI, and climate risk, with a named executive in charge, regular updates to the board and scrutiny from a board committee. “A chief quantum officer sitting inside a technology function does not automatically provide that,” Radclyffe says.

Instead, he advises businesses to produce an inventory of their quantum exposure, across cryptography, data, suppliers, and products to determine who owns those risks and which ones the board needs to be involved in. “Most organizations cannot answer those questions confidently, and a title alone does not solve that problem,” he says.

So, does a company need a chief quantum officer? “Possibly,” Radclyffe says, “but only if the role exists to strengthen governance rather than signal intent.”

Whatever the title, boards will need to understand quantum well enough to ask the right questions and judge when action or investment is necessary. With the EU’s 2030 encryption deadline fast-approaching, business leaders will have to decide who is best placed to protect the company’s systems—and determine whether quantum could give their company an edge.