White House Summit On Quantum Computing Maps Out Next Steps

(WallStreetJournal) Academics and government officials met on the White House grounds Friday, May 31 to discuss the urgent need to collaborate to advance the country’s prowess in quantum information science. The meeting included more than 20 university leaders from institutions ranging from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to Delaware State University as well as heads of government agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the Energy Department.
Quantum computing labs are expensive to create and require advanced equipment on university campuses to attract students, participants said. It should be free for academic institutions to experiment with early prototypes of quantum computers, others said.
Part of the federal quantum computing bill establishes Energy Department national research centers with five-year allocations of up to $25 million per center per year. The Energy Department’s Office of Science saw its quantum funding roughly double, to $120 million, for fiscal 2019.
Shaun Maguire, partner at GV, formerly known as Google Ventures stressed the success of quantum computing partly depends on a healthy and well-funded supply chain of critical infrastructure components, he said.