America is winning the quantum research race. It could still lose the technology race

The White House has laid out an ambitious plan to renew American science. Its new report, “Science: A New Golden Age,” calls for closer cooperation among government, industry, universities and national laboratories, a stronger domestic technology base, and research organized around national missions. That is the right direction. The question is whether government can turn those principles into working capabilities.

Quantum computing offers an early test. For more than a decade, the United States has invested in outstanding quantum research, building world-class university programs, national laboratory expertise and a growing commercial industry — leadership in a technology that could reshape materials, medicine, national security and computing.

But scientific leadership does not automatically become technological leadership. Other countries are moving aggressively to connect quantum processors with national supercomputing centers and industrial users. America cannot assume its lead in science guarantees a lead in deployment.

The next phase of policy should therefore focus on infrastructure. Quantum computers will not replace conventional supercomputers; they will work alongside CPUs, GPUs, AI systems and cloud platforms. A researcher should be able to direct each part of a workflow to the best-suited resource, without stitching together disconnected environments.

That requires more than purchasing quantum computers. Hardware, software, networking, scheduling, security and applications must be designed together. Engineers need real workloads that expose limitations; agencies need credible measures of progress that go beyond the largest qubit number in a press release.

The good news is that this shift has begun. In June, the Department of Energy launched Quantum Genesis, part of the broader Genesis Mission, aiming to deploy a scientifically useful fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2028. It has three parts: a milestone-driven DOE Q Competition among competing hardware approaches; a first-of-its-kind National Quantum Supercomputing User Facility that integrates quantum systems with the department’s high-performance computing; and targeted research on quantum applications. The task now is to fund this capability, hold it to demanding engineering milestones, and keep it disciplined.

Discipline means two things. The program should back several quantum technologies rather than bet early on one, because no approach has proven decisive, but it should also avoid becoming a collection of disconnected projects. Concentration could also be geographic. Rather than fund every region to do everything, the government could build on strengths that already exist — superconducting and cryogenic engineering depth in Illinois, atomic and optical expertise in New Mexico, measurement and standards leadership in Maryland — and ask each hub to lead where it is strongest.

Success is a working, integrated capability, not a portfolio of demonstrations. The goals should be measurable: logical, error-corrected qubits; longer reliable calculations; integration with established supercomputing; independently reproduced results; and completion of meaningful workloads. Early demonstrations suggest these targets are within reach, though the distance from a lab result to a dependable shared system remains substantial.

These measurements matter, because quantum computing has suffered from a gap between expectations and demonstrated capability. Headlines reward the largest number or boldest forecast. The answer is more science and less fiction. Companies should distinguish clearly among what has been demonstrated, what has been modeled and what remains on the roadmap. Government programs should require transparent milestones and independent testing.

Here again, government need not start from nothing. DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative has become the de facto standard for evaluation, testing roughly a score of architectures against one question: whether any can reach utility-scale operation, where value exceeds cost, by 2033. Its staged structure moves credible concepts toward independent hardware verification rather than accepting company claims at face value. That rigorous, technology-neutral model should be the norm across federal quantum programs.

A deployment strategy must also include the industrial base: specialized lasers, photonics, control electronics and precision manufacturing, plus the technicians, operators and field-service teams to run it. Workforce and supply-chain capacity must grow alongside the technology, not after it matures.

The administration’s recent quantum executive order recognizes that national strategy must evolve as quantum moves toward deployment. The National Quantum Initiative, which built a strong research foundation, should now expand to support system engineering, shared infrastructure and operational demonstrations — and tie these efforts together rather than let them run in parallel.

This is not a call to declare quantum finished or promise near-term miracles. Serious challenges remain, and not every problem suits a quantum computer. It is a call to prepare deliberately for the capabilities now emerging from years of American research. 

The reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative now moving through Congress is the moment to write these principles into law: coordinated national direction, stage-gated and independently verified funding, complementary regional hubs, and the workforce and supply-chain investment that deployment demands. 

The country need not choose between fundamental science and practical deployment; each strengthens the other. Quantum computing is a chance to begin building it.

Yuval Boger is chief commercial officer of QuEra Computing.