A QUIET BREAKTHROUGH THAT COULD PROPEL THE INDIAN ECONOMY TO THE FUTURE

November 12, 2025

Parneet Sachdev

Sometime ago, in the labs of the Raman Research Institute, Bengaluru, a group of Indian scientists were working on pure research in the quantum world. Led by a brilliant scientist Urbasi Sinha, the team theorised that in the quantum realm, genuine randomness, inexplicable by any formula, does exist. If they could generate genuine and true random numbers using a simple general purpose quantum computer, that would be wonderful.

The department of Science and Technology reports that this team of researchers have shown that Certified Quantum Randomness can be achieved using simple time-based tests on a single qubit – a novel step beyond earlier complex multi-particle setups. This opens a path toward safe digital security.

The impact of this research is truly pathbreaking. It means that for the first time, a technique to generate true random numbers is ready to be deployed in real-life situations. It potentially paves the way for the development of hack-proof digital security. Your banks accounts, your transactions, your personal information will suddenly become safe—so safe that it is un-hackable.

Still can’t fathom the impact of this! Let us examine the economic impact of digital insecurity.

THE ECONOMIC COST OF INFORMATION INSECURITY

The World Bank has conducted a study on the economic impact of cyber hacking etc in the world. The results are astounding

With 63% of the population online, developing countries, particularly in Latin America, Caribbean and Indian subcontinent, are experiencing a surge in major disclosed cyber incidents—25% growth over the past decade in LAC and 37% in UMICs—yet progress in cybersecurity measures remains slow.In developing nations, 36% of the disclosed cyber incidents target public administration, with finance and information & communications close behind, while high-income countries face a more even spread, led by healthcare at 16% (worldbank).

Steve Morgan, Editor in Chief of Cybercrime magazine had written as far back as 2020 that if cybercrime were measured as a country, then cybercrime — which is predicted to inflict damages totalling $6 trillion USD globally in 2021 — would be the world’s third-largest economy after the U.S. and China. A GDP larger than India—a GDP of theft and fraud alone.

Cybersecurity Ventures expects global cybercrime costs to grow by 15 percent per year over the next five years, reaching $10.5 trillion USD annually by 2025, up from $3 trillion USD in 2015. This represents the greatest transfer of economic wealth in history, risks the incentives for innovation and investment, is exponentially larger than the damage inflicted from natural disasters in a year, and will be more profitable than the global trade of all major illegal drugs combined.

​               In today’s interconnected digital economy, cyber-insecurity imposes tangible costs far beyond the IT-department budget line-item. According to a survey of corporate breaches, the average firm suffers a 1.1 % drop in market value and a 3.2-percentage-point reduction in year-on-year sales growth after a major cyberattack (NBER).

HOW COME SUCH HUGE NUMBERS FOR CYBER CRIME EXIST       

What drives these enormous numbers is a mix of direct and indirect effects. Direct costs such as ransomware payouts, stolen funds and remediation services are only part of the story: downtime, disrupted supply chains, lost customer trust and litigation add up significantly. Indeed, the World Bank’s review underscores how the indirect and long-tail effects make accurate costing difficult—but unmistakably large.

From an economic-policy standpoint, that means cyber-insecurity is not just a firm-level risk but a macro-economic drag: impaired productivity, weaker investment in trust-based digital business models, and heightened systemic risk across sectors.

WHAT EXACTLY DO RANDOM NUMBERS DO?

Randomly-generated numbers are critical to digital security. In fact, very large randomly-generated numbers are the foundation on which modern encryption systems and security architectures are built. The defining feature of such numbers is that they are created in completely random processes, not by following any pattern or algorithm. As a result, they cannot be guessed or predicted. Anything built on top of them — passwords, encryption keys, or authentication systems – become highly secure against hacking.

Our current systems, however, do not use truly random numbers. Instead, they use what are known as pseudorandom numbers, generated through computer algorithms. These algorithms are sophisticated enough to ensure that the very large numbers they produce appear random and are extremely difficult to predict without knowledge of how the algorithm works, as well as its initial input.These pseudorandom numbers are good enough for securing our existing networks and information systems. Even the fastest computers, applying brute-force algorithms, would take centuries or longer to decode the passwords or encryption keys based on these numbers.

However, when quantum computing comes of age (it has in many ways), what may take centuries now may take seconds or minutes. It implies that even the most secure systems of today could be hacked within minutes. That would be an enormous catastrophe for world economic order.

Thankfully, the research by Urbasi Sinha and her team could build a new paradigm in security networks—one that is NON-hackable.

UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENCE

True randomness is observed in some natural or physical processes that are inherently random, not from any algorithm. Radioactivity and weather events are a few examples of random processes in nature. The quantum behaviour of microscopic particles is also inherently random.

If a stream of photons is sent through a device and measured for a particular property, some of the photons might exhibit one behaviour, and can be assigned the number 0, while others can be assigned 1. The resulting sequence of 0s and 1s can be truly random. This is how a Quantum Random Number Generator typically works.

But even this is not foolproof. The device can be faulty or biased, compromising the entire set-up, or worse, making it vulnerable to hacking. In such a scenario, the integrity of the generated numbers cannot be ascertained. It cannot be certified whether the number is the result of the underlying natural randomness of the process, or from a fault or manipulation of the device.

HOW THE BREAKTHROUGH WAS ACHIEVED

Sinha has been working on device-independent quantum random number generation, using another quantum property called entanglement.

In the quantum world, two particles, such as photons or electrons, that have interacted previously may be mysteriously linked to each other, with the behaviour of one instantaneously influencing that of the other, regardless of the physical distance between them. The inherent quantum behaviour and randomness of this linkage is established if the outcomes violate a property called Bell’s Inequality.

Several scientific groups have run such experiments and generated random numbers, but have to separate the two particles by at least a couple hundred metres. That makes it impossible to create such a large machine.

Sinha, instead of using spatial separation, used time separation in a single particle to look for violations. This worked in 2024. However, there was no way that this could work in real  life, as the environment was lab controlled.

This time, Sinha ran experiments on a commercially available quantum computer, which is not customised. This demonstrated that the technique is robust enough to be applied in real-life situations in which there is a lot of noise and other disturbances.

This breakthrough has the potential to almost eliminate cyber fraud (unless, of course, you give your password to someone). The implications for our economy are almost unfathomable.This is the kind of fundamental research that the National Quantum Mission, fostered by our visionary Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi was set up to support.

Of course, time and support are needed to create this into a commercial system.

India may just be quietly getting ready to shake the world!

(Views expressed are the author’s own).

Parneet Sachdev, IRS is the Chairman of Real Estate Regulatory Authority and a leading author.