Latin America quantum strategies: Chile, Brazil, Mexico

Last reviewed: September 2026.

Chile is the only country among Latin America’s four largest quantum players with a published national quantum strategy (launched 17 December 2025, covering 2025 to 2035). Brazil has not published a document with that name that we could find, but it spends the most, with a federal plan of up to R$5 billion through 2034 and two domestic quantum computers funded in Paraíba. Mexico relies on university strength, mainly UNAM, and in September 2026 got a private-sector security council. Colombia funds quantum research through yearly Minciencias calls and royalty projects. The table is the short version.

Each row is sourced below. Where we could not find a public document, the table says so instead of guessing.

Does Chile have a national quantum strategy?

Yes. Chile’s Ministry of Science, under minister Aldo Valle, presented the Estrategia Nacional de Tecnologías Cuánticas 2025 to 2035 on 17 December 2025, together with a biotechnology strategy. It is the most complete public quantum policy in Latin America.

The document is organized in three axes. The first, governance and institutional framework, covers institutions, regulation, and defense and national security. The second, enabling factors, covers talent, infrastructure and ecosystem, and financing. The third, development and adoption, covers R&D, innovation and commercialization, and international links. Focus areas include quantum computing, advanced sensing, secure communications, materials simulation and cybersecurity, with mining, energy, telecommunications, logistics, health and finance named as target sectors.

It came from a process that started earlier. On 27 September 2024 an eight-member expert commission handed the then minister, Aisén Etcheverry, 15 recommendations, among them a national plan, a national commission, new laboratories, talent retention, competitive funds and support for startups in mining, renewable energy and cybersecurity.

The weak point is money. The strategy sets no budget. It commits to creating a National Commission for Quantum Technologies and to writing a 2025 to 2035 Action Plan “with goals, milestones and institutional responsibilities,” plus regional quantum nodes in Valparaíso, Biobío, the Santiago metropolitan region and the north. Until that plan and its funding appear, Chile has a direction, not a program. The document does list what already exists: more than 300 state-funded quantum research projects since 1983 worth over CLP 20,000 million (through Fondecyt, Fondef and other ANID instruments), research at Universidad de Chile, PUC, UTFSM, USACH and UACh, the MIRO optics institute, and companies such as Maqui and Sequre Quantum. It also names the national cybersecurity agency, ANCI, as the body preparing the move to post-quantum cryptography.

How much is Brazil investing in quantum?

More than any other country in the region. In an April 2025 interview with Folha de S.Paulo, Ulisses Martins Rosa of Brazil’s Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI) outlined up to R$5 billion for quantum through 2034. The first tranche, through 2029, was described as R$1.7 billion for laboratory infrastructure, R$300 million for training, R$500 million for quantum sensing and R$500 million for quantum processing, with R$2 billion more between 2030 and 2034.

Treat that as a plan announced by an official, not money already spent. What has been committed is more concrete:

Brazil’s model is closer to industrial policy than to a strategy paper: build centers, buy or build machines, fund training, and link it to microelectronics and semiconductors. The Paraíba center, announced with MCTI minister Luciana Santos, is part of the Brazilian Quantum Technologies Initiative (IBQuântica). We did not find a Brazilian federal rule on post-quantum cryptography in the sources reviewed for this article.

What is Mexico’s quantum policy?

Mexico has no federal quantum strategy and no dedicated federal budget that we could find. Its weight in the region comes from universities and from one diplomatic success.

That success was the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. The UN General Assembly proclaimed 2025 as that year in resolution A/RES/78/287 on 7 June 2024, and the initiative started with the Mexican Physical Society. Academic training is steady: UNAM’s Faculty of Engineering and Institute of Nuclear Sciences ran the fifth edition of their Escuela de Cómputo Cuántico from 3 to 7 August 2026, covering Qiskit and quantum machine learning, in person and online.

The newest development is on security, and it came from outside government. On 22 September 2026 the Asociación Mexicana de Internet (AIMX) created the Consejo Consultivo Quantum Safe México, directed by Erick Stephens, with AIMX president Lina Rodríguez. It will work on two tracks: a technical one that maps risks and dependencies, and a regulatory one that feeds public policy discussions. For Mexican banks and fintechs this is the first local forum we know of focused on quantum risk to digital services.

Where does Colombia stand?

Colombia sits between Mexico and Chile: more dedicated public calls for quantum than Mexico, less structure than Chile. Minciencias’ ColombIA Inteligente 2026 call set aside COP 8,000 million for quantum projects (of COP 24,000 million), with a cap of COP 2,000 million per project and lines in quantum information and secure communications, sensing and metrology, and energy and strategic minerals. A royalty-funded project led by Universidad Nacional with the national metrology institute has COP 30,000 million over three years and created a national research network.

On hardware, Universidad de los Andes has had a two-qubit teaching machine since November 2024, and Universidad del Valle is building an ion-trap processor that Minciencias presented in June 2025. On security, CINTEL convened a sectoral table on post-quantum cryptography in June 2026, and the financial regulator has not issued a deadline. Our full Colombia report has the institutions, figures and sources.

What about the rest of the region?

Several smaller countries matter through companies more than through policy. Quantum-South, founded in 2019 at Universidad de Montevideo in Uruguay, describes itself as Latin America’s first quantum startup and ran an air-cargo loading pilot with IAG Cargo starting in May 2022. Kipu Quantum, a company with Peruvian and German roots, works on optimization for industrial clients. We have not yet reviewed Argentina’s, Peru’s or Uruguay’s public programs in the same depth, and they will be added in a future review.

What do these strategies mean for companies?

Three practical points come out of the comparison.

First, public money follows alliances. Chile’s plan, Brazil’s centers and Colombia’s calls all reward companies that bring a real problem to a university or public lab. That is the cheapest way for a Latin American firm to test a quantum or quantum-inspired idea. Our quantum strategy and roadmap work can start by matching a company’s problems to the open calls.

Second, security deadlines will come from abroad before they come from home. No regulator in the four countries has set a post-quantum migration date that we could find. Your US and European counterparties, card networks and cloud providers are already working to 2030 to 2035 timelines, and they will pass those requirements on. Our tracker of post-quantum migration deadlines lists them, and the post-quantum cryptography migration page explains the work involved.

Third, talent is the common bottleneck. Chile names talent as a pillar, Brazil funds a residency, Colombia funds women postdocs through Orquídeas, and UNAM keeps running its school. Firms that train their own engineers, for example through quantum training for teams, will not have to compete for the few specialists each country produces.

How will we keep this page current?

We review this comparison every quarter and date each review at the top. The next changes we expect are Chile’s Action Plan and National Commission, the delivery schedule for the Paraíba machines, the first output of Mexico’s Quantum Safe council and Colombia’s funded project list for 2026. If you see a missing program or a figure that has changed, write to us with the source and we will add it.

For public agencies thinking about their own approach, our page on government and public sector covers the post-quantum and policy work that applies regardless of whether a national strategy exists yet.