The top national security advisors of South Korea, the United States and Japan celebrated the signing of a new trilateral quantum partnership to train a quantum workforce and strengthen the three countries' collective competitiveness in the technology field, a joint statement showed Thursday.

South Korean National Security Advisor Chang Ho-jin and his US and Japanese counterparts, Jake Sullivan and Takeo Akiba, respectively, issued the statement congratulating Seoul National University, the University of Chicago and the University of Tokyo for signing the partnership.

The partnership came after President Yoon Suk Yeol, US President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida reached a series of agreements on three-way cooperation at their trilateral summit at Camp David in August.

It also followed the December signing of a trilateral framework encouraging scientific cooperation among the countries' national laboratories, the statement noted.

"The United States, Japan, and the Republic of Korea are global leaders in research and development investment," it said, referring to South Korea by its official name.

"Innovative partnerships like this one position our three countries to embrace a transitional moment where cutting-edge scientific research and technology are yielding new industries and modernizing old ones. We wish these universities great success in this new quantum endeavor," it added.

The statement also said that united by "common purpose," the three countries will harness the power of their leading academic institutions to "light a new way forward." (Yonhap)