From quantum computers to human teleportation: what can this technology actually change?

For decades, teleportation has remained one of the most recognizable tropes in science fiction. In movies and TV shows, a person disappears in one place and appears almost instantly in another. However, physics actually recognizes a phenomenon known as quantum teleportation. Admittedly, it is not about moving matter, but about transmitting a quantum state.

This distinction is fundamentally important. Modern quantum teleportation does not allow sending a person through space and does not convert matter into an energy stream to be reassembled at the destination. However, the technology may prove to be one of the key elements of future quantum computing and the quantum internet.

From a sci-fi transporter to a real experiment

One of the most famous depictions of teleportation is the transporter from Star Trek. In this fictional concept, the device converts matter into an energy beam, sends it to another location, and then rebuilds the original object literally atom by atom.

Quantum teleportation does indeed allow transmitting the state of a particle over a distance, but this happens in a completely different way than in sci-fi movies. The physical particle does not disappear anywhere and is not transported from one point to another — information about its quantum state is what gets transmitted. To achieve this, scientists use quantum entanglement: two particles become linked in a special way, and after a specific measurement, the state of one particle can be reproduced on the other. This mechanism is considered one of the key elements of future quantum networks — it could allow connecting remote quantum computers and transmitting quantum information between them.

Teleportation as a way to connect quantum machines

If scientists learn to reliably transfer quantum states between remote systems, individual quantum computers could be connected to one another. Instead of one giant quantum machine, it would theoretically be possible to build a network of several systems with quantum information passing between them. This is where the concept of a quantum internet emerges.

Such a network would need to enable interaction between remote quantum devices, and quantum teleportation could serve as one of the standard protocols for information transfer between them. However, this does not mean the quantum internet will simply be a faster version of the current internet. It will rely on different physical principles and demand a completely different infrastructure.

Why human teleportation is still very far off

All of this might give the impression that the next logical step is to attempt teleporting more complex objects. Yet, a virtually insurmountable gulf currently exists between transferring the state of a single qubit and teleporting a human.

Quantum teleportation does not transport matter. To hypothetically teleport a person, one would have to somehow transfer the quantum information associated with the vast number of atoms and particles that make up the human body. Moreover, a corresponding set of atoms would need to be present at the destination to reconstruct the person, and the quantum state would have to be transmitted for every single component of the system.

Modern quantum teleportation does nothing of the sort. It works with individual quantum systems and their states, not with macroscopic objects composed of an enormous number of interacting components.

Even a flawless technology does not solve the main question

Suppose technical limitations are overcome someday. An even more fundamental question then arises: what exactly does it mean to teleport a human?

If the original person must be destroyed to transfer the information, and an organism with the same characteristics is constructed at another location from a new set of atoms, the question remains: would this be the same person or a copy?

In quantum mechanics, there is a no-cloning theorem for unknown states. This is precisely why the original state is destroyed in the standard teleportation protocol rather than preserved alongside the new one. But applying this principle to human identity goes beyond tested physics.

Can consciousness be transferred?

Theoretically, an even more complex question emerges: is what makes a person uniquely themselves — memory, personality, the sense of self — exclusively physical information that can be described and reproduced at the quantum level?

As of today, there is no basis for asserting this. Even when imagining a technology capable of transferring information about the human body’s components with incredible precision, this alone does not answer the question of the continuity of consciousness and identity.

The organism created at the destination might possess the exact same characteristics and memories, but whether it would be the very same person is a question the quantum teleportation procedure itself cannot answer. Researchers emphasize that such discussions currently belong to the realm of speculation. Human teleportation remains science fiction.

The real revolution may happen somewhere science fiction does not expect

Quantum teleportation has a paradoxical feature: the most realistic and potentially large-scale application of this technology involves moving quantum information, not people. If scientists can reliably scale these systems, quantum teleportation could become part of the infrastructure connecting quantum computers. This would mark a shift from standalone experimental machines to distributed quantum systems, and ultimately to a quantum internet.

Thus, the main outcome of decades of experiments is not progress toward a sci-fi transporter. Researchers have obtained a proven method to transfer a quantum state between remote systems without moving the original matter. The challenge now is to turn this fundamental physical effect into a reliable engineering technology. And if successful, quantum teleportation may change not how people travel, but how future computers exchange information.

Based on materials from National Geographic