White House Budget Briefing on Budget Increase for 2021 QIS Funding Cites Need for USA to Stay Ahead of China & Europe

(VentureBeat) The White House’s proposed budget for 2021 includes a great deal more funding for QIS. There’s a 50% increase over 2020, with an aim to double current funding by 2022. Although the overall new investment in QIS would be in the low hundreds of millions, arguably the marquee line item is $25 million “to support early stage research for a quantum internet.”
While much of the funding is aimed at R&D and infrastructure investments like $25 million to begin research for a quantum internet, the tenor of the briefing included defense tones. In espousing the need to invest in quantum information science (QIS), an official on the call said the U.S. needs to stay ahead of China and Europe, which are investing in their own quantum computing projects.
Other investments in quantum technologies include:
**National Science Foundation investment in QIS research will double to $210 million, an additional $105 million over FY 2020
**The Department of Energy Office of Science spending on QIS research (at national labs, as well as academia and industry) will increase to $237 million, a $70 million increase from fiscal year 2020