Quantum technologies have ceased to be merely a scientific subject and have become a matter of national security, so much so that Italian law explicitly includes them among the assets over which the State can exercise the Golden Power. For businesses, startups and investors in the sector this radically changes the geography of commercial operations, for example: funding rounds, acquisitions and technology transfers may require prior notification and have to await the outcome of a formal review by the State before they can go ahead.
This guide explains the strategic reason behind all this, the essential workings of the instrument, the practical impact on those who run a quantum business in Italy and the European framework in which the matter sits, also showing why the systemic response relies on national capabilities such as quantum emulation. It should be said at the outset that in this document the subject is treated from the standpoint of strategic overview and not of legal advice. For actual transactions, the support of a firm specialised in Golden Power remains an indispensable requirement.
What are critical technologies?
They are the technologies whose control affects a country's security and strategic autonomy, to the point that if they fell under hostile control, or if access to them were denied, the damage would be systemic. The lists, updated periodically at national and European level, include semiconductors, artificial intelligence, biotechnology and, with growing prominence, quantum technologies in all three of their branches, from computing to communication and sensing. The logic behind them is twofold, because it aims both to protect national companies from predatory acquisitions and to safeguard the supply chains on which defence and infrastructure depend. Those who operate in quantum must internalise this status, since they are not in just any tech sector but in a field watched by the State, with the constraints and opportunities that follow.
Why is quantum considered critical?
There are three reasons and they remain very concrete. The first concerns cryptanalysis, because Shor's algorithm threatens the cryptography that protects governmental, military and financial communications, and whoever reaches mature hardware first will have an unprecedented window of informational advantage, while on the opposite front post-quantum cryptography becomes in turn a matter of national security. The second concerns quantum sensing, since magnetometers, gravimeters and navigation systems independent of GPS find direct military applications. The third is the expected computational advantage in simulation and optimisation, relevant for energy materials and for defence logistics. It is dual-use nature in its purest form, because the same technology serves both in the laboratory and in military settings.
Why a quantum computer threatens current cryptography
The security of digital communications today rests largely on public-key cryptography, such as RSA and elliptic curves, whose robustness depends on the difficulty of factoring very large numbers or of solving the discrete logarithm with classical computers. Shor's algorithm, run on a quantum computer that is large enough and error-corrected, would reduce those problems to a minimal computation time, bringing down the foundations of that scheme. Hardware with this capability does not yet exist, yet the threat is already current because of the logic known as ‘harvest now, decrypt later’, whereby an adversary intercepts and stores encrypted traffic today in order to decrypt it in the future, when the machine becomes available. It is this prospect that drives governments and critical infrastructure to plan, starting now, the migration towards resistant post-quantum algorithms.
How does Golden Power work, in essence?
Golden Power is the instrument with which the Italian Government can oppose a corporate transaction that touches strategic assets, or make it subject to conditions and impose requirements on it. Originally created for defence and security, it has been extended over time to energy, transport, communications and critical technologies, quantum included. The essential mechanism provides that relevant transactions, as a rule acquisitions of control or qualifying shareholdings and especially when they come from non-EU parties, are notified to the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, which within set deadlines may authorise, impose conditions or, in extreme cases, prohibit them from going ahead. The official documentation is published on the website of the Government (Golden Power document, in Italian), while the concrete application remains a matter to be entrusted to sector specialists; every transaction must be assessed case by case. It is worth remembering that Golden Power works more as a filter than as a ban, because the great majority of notified transactions are authorised, often with requirements, and transparency towards the review becomes itself a factor of speed.
When is notification triggered for the quantum sector?
Simplifying as far as needed, the scope covers transactions that transfer control or significant shareholdings in companies active in critical technologies, together with acts that dispose of strategic assets, such as the sale of technology business units or agreements that give third parties the availability of sensitive know-how. For quantum, the qualification as a critical technology makes the scope particularly wide, and practice has leaned towards caution, so much so that when in doubt notification is preferred. The review times, which remain manageable weeks if planned in good time, must be built into business transaction calendars. It would be a mistake to regard notification as an obstacle to be circumvented, because penalties for omission are severe and retroactive regularisation is far from guaranteed. The good practice that has become established is informal pre-notification, that is, a preliminary discussion with the competent offices that reduces uncertainty about the outcome and in effect shortens the overall timeline of the transaction.
What does it mean for startups and investors?
The operational consequences are essentially three. For startups, the corporate structure and the rounds must be designed knowing that a significant non-EU investor can trigger the screening, with timelines and documentation to be factored in, and it is advisable to treat this aspect as a transaction cost to be managed with specialist advice from the outset. For investors, due diligence must include Golden Power analysis, while the presence of the State as an observer should also be read as a signal of the strategic value recognised in the sector. For both, partnerships with institutional parties and national programmes become an asset, because they anchor the company to the national strategic ecosystem. The constraint, when well managed, turns into positioning, since in these sectors being a company that is relevant for Golden Power is equivalent to being a company that the State considers strategic, a label that also carries weight in negotiations.
What is the European framework?
The European framework is consistent with the national one and converges in the same direction. The Union has placed the technologies described among the critical areas of its economic security strategy, recommending that Member States assess the risks in quantum computing, communication and sensing. The foreign investment screening regulation coordinates national mechanisms, of which Golden Power is the Italian version, while programmes such as the Quantum Flagship fund domestic technological capacity, in the conviction that protecting without building leaves the strategy half done. The overall message for those operating in these sectors is that they will develop inside a supervised perimeter, with more selective capital but also with structural public demand ranging from defence to infrastructure. For an Italian company, being able to read both levels, that is, the national constraint and the European opportunity, is by now as much a part of the strategy as the product.
How does it relate to technological sovereignty?
Golden Power works as a shield, while technological sovereignty is the sword, and without the latter the former ends up protecting little. Being able to prohibit the acquisition of a national quantum company is of little use if the computational capabilities on which the country depends reside abroad anyway, because the complete answer requires national infrastructure, widespread skills and safeguarded supply chains.
Operate within the perimeter, with national capability
HumanQ supports businesses and institutions that operate on critical technologies, with development and training within a governable national infrastructure. Assess your organisation's quantum readiness or contact the HumanQ team.