Quantum computing is part of the emerging and potentially disruptive technology field of quantum information science, or QIS, which broadly applies the laws of physics and complex phenomena happening at atomic and subatomic levels to store, transmit, manipulate, compute or measure information.

Experts largely expect QIS to unleash transformational science, engineering and communication applications (like an unhackable internet) in the near future, once fault-tolerant quantum computers are fully realized. With that in mind, DOD and other federal agencies have been increasingly prioritizing quantum-enabling activities and investments.

In a move to help the Pentagon strategically scale the technology and build on current momentum, lawmakers on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber Innovative Technologies, and Information Systems (CITI) are pushing for the creation of a new one-stop, military-focused quantum hub.

“The Secretary of Defense shall establish a Quantum Computing Center of Excellence … at a research laboratory of a covered Armed Force with requisite experience in quantum computing, integrated photonics and photon qubits, superconducting and hybrid systems, and trapped ions,” they wrote in their mark for the fiscal 2025 Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and National Defense Authorization Act.

Centers of Excellence (COE) are generally embedded within federal agencies to foster innovation or modernization in a coordinated way around a specific topic of interest. 

If this provision is passed, the quantum COE would be set to exist for 10 years post-enactment.

Text of the legislation lays out what the lawmakers would like to see be the primary responsibilities for the center. They include:

• Accelerate the transition of advanced quantum and quantum hybrid computing technology from the research-and-development phase into operational use. 
• Facilitate quantum computing workforce development.  
• Conduct outreach to enhance government, industry and academia’s understanding of national security-related use cases for quantum computing and quantum hybrid technology and operational challenges faced by DOD that may be addressed using such technology. 
• Prototype quantum computing and quantum hybrid applications.
• Undertake efforts to advance the technology readiness levels of quantum computing. 
• Carry out such other activities relating to quantum computing as the secretary of defense determines appropriate. 

The research lab selected to launch the center would be able to partner with other stakeholders at the Defense Innovation Unit, other government labs, federally funded R&D centers, university affiliated research centers and the private sector.   

“Subject to availability of appropriations, the Secretary of Defense may make grants and enter into contracts or other agreements, on a competitive basis, to support the activities of the Center,” according to the legislative proposal.

The mark also includes a separate section that would require DOD to “develop a strategic plan to guide the research, development, test, and evaluation, procurement, and implementation of” QIS within the department and military services over the period of five years following its enactment.

In a conversation with DefenseScoop on Thursday, Paul Stimers — an attorney and member of Holland & Knight’s Public Policy and Regulation Group who also leads a coalition of quantum companies seeking to advance U.S. leadership in that space — noted that the NDAA provision is “consistent with the thrust” of the recently introduced, bipartisan Defense Quantum Acceleration Act. 

“In general, the coalition supports efforts to develop an overarching strategy for DOD quantum R&D, and the creation of an organization within DOD with the authority and capacity to execute such a strategy,” Stimers told DefenseScoop.

The House Armed Services Committee is expected to meet May 22 to mark up the NDAA.

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Broadly, quantum information science (QIS) and related technologies encompass the investigation and application of complex phenomena happening at atomic and subatomic levels to process and transmit data and information. Scientists and experts expect the still-evolving field will enable transformational science, engineering and communication assets as early as this decade — particularly for the Department of Defense.

DefenseScoop recently asked Pentagon observers with quantum expertise to weigh in on the significance of the QIS inclusions that did (and did not) make it into the 2024 NDAA.

“Would we have liked to have seen more? Of course — a bigger overall quantum budget with more quantum computing purchases to increase DOD’s exposure to the technology and send a stronger demand signal would have been great,” Paul Stimers, an attorney and member of Holland & Knight’s Public Policy and Regulation Group who also leads a coalition of quantum computing, communications and cryptography companies working to advance U.S. leadership in the space, told DefenseScoop.

“But this is a very good next step and we understand the tremendous budgetary pressures on the NDAA this year (two wars, inflation/interest rates, recruiting challenges, shipbuilding, etc. etc. etc.),” Stimers added in an interview over email. 

According to a fact sheet from the Senate Armed Services Committee, Congress’ bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the defense policy bill “authorizes increased funding for a number of initiatives, including a distributed quantum networking testbed, [and the] development of a next-generation ion trap quantum computer at the Air Force Research Laboratory.”

“The quantum networking testbed is a relatively small investment that will help prove out quantum networking, an area where China has led,” Stimers noted.

The more than 1,700-page legislative text also approves a provision that requires the Pentagon to set up a new pilot program geared specifically toward quantum computing capabilities that hold a lot of promise to be developed and deployed in the next two years or less.

“The quantum pilot program will provide a dedicated focus on use case identification for near-term application development, something not included in any other NDAA,” Allison Schwartz, global government relations leader at quantum computing systems producer D-Wave, told DefenseScoop. 

The company and its customers have a “long history working with the DOD on quantum applications” and hardware, she confirmed.

In Schwartz’s view, the newly directed quantum pilot program will push the Pentagon to expand “its historically narrow focus beyond gate-model quantum computing and consider all viable quantum computing systems, including annealing quantum computing and quantum-hybrid applications” when developing demonstrations, proof of concepts, and pilots. 

While “gate-model” and “annealing” refer to different types of quantum computer designs, “quantum-hybrid applications” essentially combine quantum and classical computing systems.

“The U.S. government must consider all quantum technologies to meet the needs of the military, including logistics and transportation challenges, optimizing autonomous and robotic vehicles, tracking space debris, and emergency response. This program will help accelerate use of near-term quantum technologies by the U.S. government which is important because other global leaders are already building applications that benefit defense and national security such as the Australian Army for emergency response re-supply, and tsunami evacuation routes in Japan. In the private sector, examples include the SavantX application for optimizing a cargo pier at Port of Los Angeles and Davidson Technologies for threat detection,” Schwartz told DefenseScoop.

Down the line, this new pilot may require additional funding via defense appropriations processes.

“The pilot program will be directed through [a federally funded research-and-development center], and should incorporate small companies and non-traditional government contractors, as much of the advancement in quantum application development is coming from those entities,” Schwartz said. 

“Now we must ensure the DOD begins the important process of identifying problems that could benefit from today’s quantum computing. D-Wave and the rest of the quantum industry stand ready to partner with the DOD by helping to identify and prioritize the best use cases for today’s quantum technology, so we may accelerate the benefits to help achieve mission objectives,” she added.

In a letter to the chairs and ranking members of the congressional armed services committees, the Quantum Industry Coalition — led by Stimers — noted the need for the type of pilot program that was included in the NDAA.

“A focus on near-term applications will help avoid the natural tendency toward long-term and theoretical research,” Stimers told DefenseScoop.

The group’s letter also spotlighted the coalition’s backing of other quantum topics for the policy bill, including but not limited to: support for developing the quantum workforce; quantum computer acquisition; development and deployment of post-quantum cryptography; and investment in a distributed quantum networking testbed.

“Workforce development is a critical factor for the quantum industry across the board. It’s important that DOD begins acquiring quantum computers both to send a demand signal to the private sector (unlocking further private investment and leveraging taxpayer funding) and to enable experimentation and use-case development within DOD. Post-quantum cryptography is an immediate need, as adversaries are currently stealing encrypted data for future decryption by quantum computers,” Stimers explained.

Overall though, he said the coalition is pleased with the provisions that made it into the NDAA.

“We appreciate that Congress is helping ensure that DOD invests in potentially game-changing quantum technologies that will help us win, and thus not have to fight, the next war,” Stimers said.

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“I think it’s going to be exciting to see what happens here,” Dr. Dan Gunlycke, the Naval Research Laboratory’s lead for quantum computing and technical director of the Naval Quantum Computing Program Office in the Department of the Navy, told DefenseScoop on Tuesday.

Broadly, quantum information science (QIS) is an emerging and likely disruptive technology field that involves investigating and applying complex phenomena that occur at atomic and subatomic levels to process and move information. Researchers and scientists predict it will enable transformational science, engineering and communication applications as early as this decade.

The Naval Research Laboratory has been conducting fundamental QIS research for nearly 3 decades — particularly, in key areas of positioning, navigation and timing, computing, sensing, and algorithms. 

During a panel at GDIT’s Emerge Quantum summit hosted by Scoop News Group on Tuesday, Gunlycke detailed how the lab recently produced a roadmap for quantum development across appropriate application areas and established a new quantum computing program office “to kind of bring everything together.”

“Quantum goes across everything — so, we really have scientists out in multiple divisions. And now, we’re setting up this broader umbrella where we can collaborate,” he told DefenseScoop on the sidelines of the event.

In terms of ongoing research, one area where the Navy sees potential opportunities for game-changing quantum applicability is to simulate the probability of outcomes for risk assessments. 

“We see a lot of people in this room together. Let’s say that each one of you is trying to make a decision and we have 100 people in here. The number of outcomes, if it’s a binary decision, is two to the power of 100. That’s an enormous number. So, if we want to try to predict or calculate the probability distribution, it’s almost impossible with classical means. … But if you start to communicate with each other and have a lot of interactions, it becomes very hard. That’s what we see in what the warfighter is facing. So when you have a peer adversary with a lot of actors in it, they communicate and make decisions together as a unit — and that’s just very, very difficult to predict,” Gunlycke explained on the panel.

After the discussion, he told DefenseScoop that with quantum computers, computational space grows exponentially — and therefore could be useful for such warfighter probability simulations.

In response to a question about the training data that’s underpinning that algorithmic development, Gunlycke said: “I can’t go into too much detail on that. But there are different datasets. This technology hasn’t gotten that far — in the sense that we can still use even public datasets and try that out. And then, as the potential application matures, then we transition to more sensitive datasets.”

Although he and his team recognize that, as he put it, “there is still a big step between where we are today and getting to this point” of fault-tolerant, fully realized quantum computers, Gunlycke also noted that he’s confident that “the fundamental technology and the principles are there.”

“I think that’s why quantum computers are getting so much attention. All of these companies, … they wouldn’t start investing if they couldn’t see a profit. So I think this is not a hypothetical area — it’s a real area. What we still don’t know is how fast it’s going to develop,” he told DefenseScoop.

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Quantum information science (QIS) is an emerging and potentially disruptive field that encompasses the investigation and application of complex phenomena happening at atomic and subatomic levels to process and move information. 

Ahead of releasing an anticipated broad agency announcement, DARPA is hosting an in-person, unclassified proposers day for its envisioned Quantum Augmented Network — or QuANET — program on May 11. 

“The QuANET program seeks to augment existing software infrastructure and network protocols with quantum properties to mitigate some of the attack vectors that are pervasive on classical (non-quantum) networks. The program will achieve this goal by blending existing ‘best-of’ quantum communications capabilities into networks operating today in military and critical infrastructure,” DARPA officials wrote in a new proposers day announcement.

Those interested in participating can register online. The registration deadline is May 5.

“Hybrid quantum-classical network infrastructure will allow a wide range of networking and communication experts to develop additional applications for the technology,” the announcement states.

“QuANET seeks to build an environmentally hardened, configurable network interface card that directly connects quantum links with classical computing nodes. This hardware design should extend capabilities already available in classical networks,” officials wrote.

At the upcoming event at the DARPA facility in Arlington, Virginia, agency officials will discuss the technical goals and challenges associated with the new pursuit — and the proposal requirements of an impending broad agency announcement that will support the overarching program.

The meeting will not be open to the general public or members of the media.

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Tucked into the Defense Department’s latest batch of budget justification documents, this new-start project is referred to as Quantum Transition Acceleration.

“The [DOD’s] research and development of quantum technologies is critical to maintaining the nation’s technological superiority,” officials wrote in the Defense-wide justification book for fiscal 2024 budget estimates.

Broadly, quantum information science (QIS) encompasses the investigation and application of complex phenomena happening at atomic and subatomic levels to process and transmit information. 

Experts largely predict that this field will enable disruptive, transformational science, engineering and communication applications in the not-so-distant future.

“Quantum technology is approaching a tipping point that will determine how quickly it can make an impact. If the [U.S.] can stay on pace, many important outcomes for the [DOD] can be realized including robust position, navigation and timing for DOD freedom of operations with precision strike even with contests in spectrum, space, or cyber operations,” Pentagon officials wrote in the budget justification documents. 

They further noted that quantum computation could lead to “rapid advances in materials and chemistry for advanced energetics, propulsion, and platform coatings” — as well as enable nascent optimization techniques for stealth properties, logistics and machine learning.

Quantum tech might also drastically enhance electromagnetic spectrum capabilities, which they said holds promise to supply DOD with “significant advantages” associated with electronic warfare, intelligence collection and more.

For a number of reasons at this point, however, the department recognizes “risk” for the slowdown of technological maturation affiliated with quantum applications for defense.

“Two challenges and barriers to implementation are: component and supply chain maturity of bleeding-edge capability in photonics, including lasers, active light manipulation, light delivery, and packaging; and misalignment of government with industry regarding quantum technology development priorities, maturity time-line realism, and technology protection strategy,” officials wrote in the budget justification documents.

The Pentagon seeks to alleviate those major issues via the new Quantum Transition Acceleration project.

Of the $75 million requested for fiscal 2024 to fund that work, $45 million would be used for “maturing, demonstrating, and transitioning quantum inertial sensors, gravity sensors, atomic clocks, and quantum electro-magnetic sensors,” officials wrote, noting that those specific technologies would be “sourced from existing projects that have already demonstrated performance advantages.” 

The other $30 million would focus on “identifying, developing and maturing critical components supporting technology for atomic clocks, quantum sensors, and quantum computers” — and ultimately help “accelerate the transition of laboratory-scale systems to manufacturable commercial products,” per the budget justification documents.

On top of the $75 million requested for the Quantum Transition Acceleration initiative in fiscal 2024, the department also projects that it will request $100 million per year in the fiscal 2025-2028 time frame to continue to push it forward.

“This investment will be key to help the U.S. stay competitive with other nations, not only in quantum computing, but also in many other quantum-enabled technologies — such as entanglement-based sensing capabilities, secure communications and computing, secure access to the quantum cloud, and many more applications — which have key national security implications,” University of Arizona professor Saikat Guha told DefenseScoop in an email on Wednesday.

A leading expert in this field, Guha also serves as the director of the National Science Foundation’s Engineering Research Center for Quantum Networks, or CQN. This week, he’s hosting the Arizona Quantum Initiative Inaugural Workshop to bring together those interested in the technology, and spotlight some of the university’s latest research findings. 

Guha, as well as other University of Arizona-affiliated scientists and students, are working directly with multiple Pentagon components to generate and deploy quantum-enabled solutions. 

“Although the technologies are in various stages of development, we envision some to have an impact in DOD’s capabilities and provide the U.S. a leading edge over its adversaries,” he told DefenseScoop. 

With the Office of Naval Research, for example, Guha and his team are “using squeezed light — a form of light whose properties can only be described by the quantum theory of optics — to enhance the sensitivity of multiple photonic sensor modalities,” he said. That work could eventually lead to fiber-optic gyroscopes for position and navigation in GPS-denied environments and quantum-enhanced radio-frequency photonic antennas to detect hidden signals that are inaccessible otherwise, among other nascent capabilities.

There are other ongoing, quantum-focused efforts the university is leading with the Army, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and others.

While he was pleased to see the new-start quantum program’s inclusion in the 2024 defense budget estimate, Guha said he “would love to see more concerted investments and programs tailored to transitioning technologies to the end users — both in the government as well as the industry.”

“In my experience, there is a lot of very high impact work that comes out of [DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office] programs, which do not make their way to the transition partners in a natural way. Many quantum-enabled technologies are ready for such transition,” Guha told DefenseScoop.

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“Quantum computers threaten the foundation of data architectures that rely on today’s public-key cryptography, considered impossible for classical computers to break,” Jen Sovada, president of SandboxAQ’s public sector division, told DefenseScoop in an email on Monday.

This new Phase I Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract award, announced on Nov. 18, marks SandboxAQ’s first deal with the U.S. military since it split-away from Alphabet — Google’s parent company — in March.

Sovada, a former Air Force intelligence officer, said the award validates “SandboxAQ’s efforts with regard to post-quantum cryptography and data protection at the highest level of security.”

Quantum information science is a potentially disruptive field that exploits phenomena at subatomic levels to process and transmit data in completely novel ways. Though they aren’t fully realized yet, quantum computers are anticipated to one day break the encryption protocols that governments and other organizations currently rely on to shield sensitive information.

“Data not secured with quantum-resistant protocols can be harvested, stored indefinitely, and then decrypted once an adversary has access to a fault-tolerant, error-corrected quantum computer,” Sovada said.

“These ‘store now, decrypt later’ (SNDL) attacks are happening already,” she added. “The fear is that once a quantum computer is available, data that was stored previously will be decrypted in a matter of minutes, allowing adversaries unprecedented access to national security information.”

Looking to get ahead of such threats, the Biden administration released new directives earlier this year to accelerate America’s transition to post-quantum cryptography and attempt to safeguard national infrastructure before the next-generation computers are in operation. Last week, the Office of Management and Budget set a May 4 deadline by which federal agencies must provide an inventory of their own cryptographic systems that might be vulnerable to quantum threats.

“The U.S. government is a large ecosystem with many competing requirements where policy change and compliance can be slow. Transitioning enterprises to new cryptographic standards will take years and requires planning and testing now. The longer we wait, the more sensitive data has the potential to be stolen, stored, and put at risk,” Sovada told DefenseScoop.

In this initial phase of SBIR work, the company will explore technological ways to strengthen the Air and Space Forces’ cryptographic security postures. It is expected to last 90 days, and follow-on phases are possible. 

“We aren’t authorized by the customer to share details on the contract value,” Sovada noted. 

In her view, the company is differentiated from its competitors by its “AQ” approach, which deliberately combines artificial intelligence and quantum capabilities.

“These two disciplines have been working independently for some time, but we believe it’s critical to look at them as one holistic approach to solve hard problems. When you combine two fields it is often a recipe for a revolution — that’s what’s happening with AI and quantum technology,” Sovada said.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who also previously chaired the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Board, leads SandboxAQ’s board of directors. CEO Jack Hidary is an author and former fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked to advance functional brain imaging and artificial neural networks. 

“Approximately 65% of our team members hold [doctorate degrees] in areas such as physics, mathematics, cryptography, chemistry, engineering, AI, medicine, and photonics,” Sovada noted.

Prior to this partnership, the National Institute of Standards and Technology selected SandboxAQ as one of 17 high-tech businesses to support post-quantum cryptography preparations for its National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence. 

Other public sector collaboration projects could soon be in the company’s pipeline.

Sovada confirmed in the email to DefenseScoop that “SandboxAQ is in conversations with several DOD organizations who are interested in implementing AI + quantum technology in areas such as cybersecurity, sensing, and simulation and optimization.” 

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In the highly-anticipated document, Defense Department leadership targets the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the “pacing” threat and most serious danger to U.S. national security — with Russia, Iran, North Korea, homeland threats and terrorist groups also posing escalating risks.

“Compounding all of these challenges, as we saw in our understanding of the security environment, is a wide range of newer, faster-building technologies and applications that are complicating escalation dynamics and creating new challenges for strategic stability,” a senior Defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity ahead of the strategy’s release. 

The DOD’s updated approach to achieving its goals and protecting national security — in what it deems this “decisive decade” that is “stamped by dramatic changes in geopolitics, technology, economics, and our environment” — is founded on four pillars:

• Defending the homeland, paced to the growing multi-domain threat posed by the PRC 
• Deterring strategic attacks against the U.S., allies and partners
• Deterring aggression, while being prepared to prevail in conflict when necessary — prioritizing the PRC challenge in the Indo-Pacific, then the Russia challenge in Europe
• Building a resilient Joint Force and defense ecosystem

Via the NDS, senior leaders confirm their recognition that technologies and operational domains are evolving at a pace that faster than ever before — and also introducing new complications to ensuring strategic stability for the U.S. and its allies. 

“In the cyber and space domains, the risk of inadvertent escalation is particularly high due to unclear norms of behavior and escalation thresholds, complex domain interactions, and new capabilities,” the strategy states. “New applications of artificial intelligence, quantum science, autonomy, biotechnology, and space technologies have the potential not just to change kinetic conflict, but also to disrupt day-to-day U.S. supply chain and logistics operations.”

To ensure the U.S. military has a leg up technologically, the strategy commits to fueling research and development for advanced capabilities — including in directed energy, hypersonics, integrated sensing, and cyber, specifically — and seeding opportunities in areas such as biotechnology, quantum science, advanced materials, and clean energy tech.

“Close collaboration with allies and partners is foundational for U.S. national security interests and for our collective ability to address the challenges that the PRC and Russia present while responsibly managing the array of other threats we face,” the senior Defense official said. “Our progress on this front will not be possible unless we can address long-standing institutional barriers, which inhibit collective planning, interoperability and mutually beneficial procurement — including the need for improved cybersecurity and breaking down barriers to sharing information.”

The report said the Pentagon will also be “a fast-follower where market forces are driving commercialization of militarily-relevant capabilities in trusted artificial intelligence and autonomy, integrated network system-of-systems, microelectronics, space, renewable energy generation and storage, and human-machine interfaces.”

For years, DOD executives have pledged to accelerate their vast organizations’ ability to buy, develop and deploy emerging technologies. During the press briefing, the senior Defense official told DefenseScoop that a number of modern elements will enable Pentagon components to do that better than they ever have previously. 

“This point on technology is an important one, and it is absolutely an area of emphasis,” they said.

To those running the Pentagon, the official noted that driving co-development of technologies with international partners like the U.K. and Australia “presents just a ton of potential in that vein.”

Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu is also “spending a ton of time on making sure that we’ve got a technology approach that is thoughtful and considered and can be realized,” the official added.  

Further, the ongoing conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is also providing “an intriguing” case study associated with speedily deploying emerging capabilities.

Through that lens, the U.S. security assistance system has moved “a whole lot faster than I think any of us had ever conceived was actually possible,” the official told DefenseScoop, noting that existing capabilities are also being applied in new and innovative ways. 

“I think that has been pretty important too,” the official said. “It does tell me that this can be more feasible going forward because we’ve had this experience.”  

In March, the Pentagon delivered the classified version of the NDS to Congress to help inform budget proposals. At the briefing on Thursday, the senior Defense official also told DefenseScoop that that secret version is a bit longer — “but not three-times the length, necessarily” — with more details on technology.

For the first time ever, the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review and Missile Defense Review are also nested in this 80-page NDS.

“I really can’t underscore enough what a big deal this is. It is. I mean, throughout our history, we have operated these reviews in the stovepipes … and that’s not at all what happened here. We actually baked the cake together — and that was pretty darn meaningful,” the senior Defense official said. 

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Quantum information science (QIS) is part of a complex and emerging computing paradigm where experts apply “bizarre” phenomena occurring at atomic and subatomic levels to process information in new ways. Governments are increasingly investing in associated research and development, with expectations that quantum processes will drive transformational science, engineering and communication applications in the not-so-distant future. The technology could have major implications for national security, experts say.

While classical computers operate using basic units called bits, which each hold one of two possible values — or the binary digits 0 or 1 — quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can essentially exist in multiple states at one time. 

Qubits can be made out of different types of quanta, like electrons or photons, and entities are pursuing varying approaches around those to develop the first-ever practical, fault-tolerant and large-scale quantum computer. In this photonic approach-based work, PsiQuantum and AFRL will produce special quantum photonic chips that can be “used to control and process qubits” based on particles of light, or single photons, according to the release.

“The deep silicon photonics expertise of PsiQuantum is critical in our mission to not only accelerate the advancement and deployment of [QIS], but in developing capabilities to meet the needs of the emerging national security landscape,” AFRL Deputy Director Michael Hayduk said in a statement. 

He added that this partnership supports both the lab’s and the Defense Department’s broader missions of “pursuing long-term, broad-based research programs that ultimately lead to world-changing applications across multiple industries.”

Officials from PsiQuantum and AFRL will manufacture the chips at GlobalFoundries’ semiconductor fab in Malta, New York. Last year, PsiQuantum and GlobalFoundries announced what they deemed to be the first single photon detector built in a silicon chip — a new capability to read out the value of a qubit’s state.

This partnership is largely supported by the $25 million in federal funding that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., previously unveiled as part of the spending package for fiscal 2022.

In the latest release, Schumer said this collaboration “will strengthen our national security, create good-paying jobs, and further fuel Upstate New York’s leadership in the tech economy to help the U.S. stay ahead of all rivals, including China, in technological innovation.”

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Quantum information science (QIS) involves the investigation and application of bizarre phenomena that occur at atomic and subatomic levels to process and move information. Experts predict it will enable transformational science, engineering and communication applications in the future — like an unhackable internet, or GPS in remote environments.

The Defense Department has been pursuing QIS-aligned initiatives since at least the early 1990s, John Burke, principal director for quantum science in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, noted Thursday during the ExecutiveBiz Quantum Technologies Forum.

A lot of progress has been made, but in his view, there are many unknowns to tackle before a scalable quantum system can be fully realized.

While there is a great deal of hype surrounding the technology, many components that will make up the ultramodern systems are still in their infancy. Enabling quantum success will also rely a lot on public-private partnerships, as different hubs develop specialized platforms that may need to work together as the tech evolves. Burke pointed to uncertainties around funding both in the near term and down the line. 

“Today, it’s just my observation that a lot of the funding for quantum technology has been around a particular application and maybe a particular component for that application. There’s not much larger ecosystem related-funding — and I think that’s something that needs to change,” he said, adding, “even if quantum computing takes off as we all hope, it’ll still be a very low-volume demand compared to, say, consumer electronics. So, there’s always going to be a question mark.”

“I have more questions than I have answers,” he also noted.

One realm of QIS involves next-generation quantum computing. While classical computers are made up of basic units called bits that each represent a one or a zero, quantum computers would be based on quantum bits — or qubits —  which can exist in multiple states at any one given time.

Burke noted that, right now, the sharpest focus from the government and industry is on two types of quantum technologies.

“There’s sort of a set of qubits that require cryogenic dilution refrigerators, mostly — and microwave links, oftentimes, but not exclusively. There’s another set of devices and ideas that use photons as sort of carrier qubits and often require a vacuum, or a potentially ultra-high vacuum to operate,” he explained.

The Pentagon currently has a “little bias towards” photonic systems, Burke said, due partly to how they align better with quantum sensor-related efforts the department has been investing in over the years.

“You could debate about how many qubits we need for any particular application, but sources kind of point to 1 million to 10 million, or maybe even more qubits,” Burke said. He added that right now, the DOD is still “figuring things out like what is the layout of these, and how would you use a small number of qubits effectively?” 

Questions also remain around associated topics like thermal management to keep such systems cool, interconnecting complex networks, intellectual property, fabricating and scaling the many intricate system components — and more.

“In order to kind of realize all of these dreams, and especially on the photonics side of things, we need a lot of breakthroughs. We need breakthroughs in photonics and cryogenics, breakthroughs in dilution refrigerators and vacuum equipment, and all those things,” Burke said.

He and his colleagues are also “trying to figure out where utility might come from” once quantum machines are fully operational. Presently a lot is up in the air in terms of where QIS can offer the most advantages.

“There are heuristics out there that are, by their very nature, not predictable. We’ll have to build a computer to see how well that’ll turn out, I think. So, it could be that there’ll be a lot of applications that we just don’t have the capability to predict right now,” he noted.

“The good news is there are going to be breakthroughs, because a lot of really bright people are working on this,” he added. 

Burke said that, at DOD, his door is always open for recommendations on how to proceed with confronting these many unknowns. 

“If you have an idea — even if it’s not very good — that’s a starting point. So, all ideas are welcome,” he said.

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Through the newly unveiled Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network Research Consortium (DC-QNet), eight federal entities will contribute to a host of scientific and technical pursuits necessary to implement a functional quantum network for the U.S. government and Department of Defense.

Quantum information science (QIS) is a buzzy, emerging field that the U.S. government and its competitors have been increasingly prioritizing. The discipline seeks to apply phenomena associated with quantum mechanics to process and transmit information. Quantum networks are elements of QIS envisioned to one day provide the ability to securely distribute and share data among quantum computers, clusters of quantum sensors and other devices.

Agencies involved in DC-QNet include the Army Research Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, Naval Observatory, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Security Agency (NSA) and NASA. The Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific and Air Force Research Laboratory are also involved as out-of-region affiliates.

“This is an example of [federal] organizations with different missions working together on common scientific challenges that benefit all of their missions,” DC-QNet Executive Director Gerald Borsuk told FedScoop on Wednesday. “The synergism of their contributions will enable advances that none of them separately could achieve in an efficient manner.”

Principal investigators from the various government components will each steer tasks aligned with specific technical goals. Pursuits will include advancing metrology needed to operate a quantum network, infrastructure development, network simulation, and the implementation of novel capabilities and devices to enable this technology.

The door might later be opened to other organizations to participate in the initiative, Borsuk told FedScoop.

“Once the basic science and network configuration is established and experimental proof of key components and concepts are performed, other organizations including from [the public and private sectors and academia] may be given the opportunity to conduct innovative experiments on the DC-QNet,” he said.

Quantum networks will likely be essential to state-of-the-art, secure communications and computing enhancements in the decades to come, he noted. To work, they lean on the exploitation of quantum-entangled particles, such as photons, to move information in the form of qubits — the basic unit of information in QIS technologies. 

Quantum entanglement refers to a unique property of atomic and subatomic particles that isn’t completely explained by classical physics. It’s essentially the relationship between such tiny particles where the quantum state of each can’t be described independently of the state of the others — even though they are physically apart.

“The successful demonstration of controlled quantum entanglement distribution amongst three physically separated nodes represents a key outcome” the DC-QNet aims to achieve, noted Borsuk, who also serves as the associate director of research for the Naval Research Lab’s Systems Directorate.

The consortium’s roots

Interest in quantum networking has blossomed in recent years, Borsuk said.

In February 2020, the Energy Department hosted a quantum networking workshop in its New York City offices, which many scientists and engineers attended — including Borsuk.

Shortly thereafter, it came to light at a Naval Research Lab meeting that dark fiber — or fiber not being used for traditional telecommunications and with no optical-electronic-optical interfaces — connected several government laboratories that had ongoing research in QIS, and specifically quantum networking. Those discussions eventually led to a virtual workshop in November 2020 organized by NIST.  

“The workshop included participation by all the U.S. government laboratories performing quantum research in the Washington Metro area,” Borsuk noted.

Through the workshop, the experts involved defined their areas of mutual research interest that could be key to implementing a quantum network. 

“Given the excitement around these activities, the executive technical leadership of these organizations started meeting monthly, and DC-QNet evolved into the current organization,” Borsuk said.

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