A quantum playbook for Trump

Politico

24-02-2025

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As Elon Musk's 'Department of Government Efficiency' rampages through the federal bureaucracy, demanding staff and budget cuts, one tech industry that counts on the government for fundamental research and funding is projecting confidence.
Quantum has come a long way since it caught the interest of civilian, defense and intelligence agencies in the 1990s as a theoretical, ill-understood future paradigm changer.
Since then, quantum computers have grown steadily larger and more functional — though still very much in the realm of experiment and science. Last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella showed off a new palm-sized quantum chip that he proclaimed was the physical representation of its 20-year pursuit of creating 'an entirely new state of matter' and would lead to a truly meaningful quantum computer in years instead of decades.
That's not 'now.' Quantum computing is a key zone of competition with China and very dependent on the federal government for research spending as well as wonkier aspects of development like standards-setting.
So where does that leave quantum in the Washington of 2025?
DFD spoke to Paul Stimers, the executive director of the Quantum Industry Coalition, which represents companies like Google, IBM, Quantinuum and Microsoft. He outlined the group's hopes for the role of government in supporting and integrating quantum technology, how those debates are heating up within both commercial and policy circles — and, crucially, its Trump-era wishlist, including a 'quantum czar.'
An edited and condensed version of our conversation follows:
The federal government has long funded fundamental research in early-stage but promising technologies. Quantum is often raised as an example. How important is that support today?
It's still crucial, and we still want to have the National Quantum Initiative Act reauthorized. The basic research continues to be important, but increasingly it's important to move beyond just, how to build a qubit — we're getting pretty good at that — and more into how do we do the applications. And there's an ongoing and pretty significant debate about how best to do federal support of commercialization and translational research. We want to be sure that we're gaining the economic value of the research that we produce, but we also want to avoid picking winners and losers in the marketplace and placing big bets on specific applications that may or may not pan out.
There's a big discussion on the Hill about that, not only in quantum but in other advanced technology spaces. We think we have a pretty good solution in the National Quantum Initiative Reauthorization Act that was [advanced] by the House Science Committee last Congress. What that bill did was say, 'okay, we've got the whole [NQI], but we also want to have the White House reach out to various agencies across the government and say, 'hey, have you thought about how quantum computing could help you meet your mission in various ways?' … The goal there is to help federal agencies, everybody from the Department of Agriculture to the NSA figure out, 'okay, here's how quantum computing can help us, and then how we can buy it.'
What are your biggest policy priorities for the new administration and Congress?
Our top three priorities are reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative Act, reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative Act and reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative Act. And we're excited to see that the House Science Committee has indicated in its priorities document that it released as part of its initial sort of organizing meeting, that that's one of its priorities as well.
And we expect the Senate Commerce Committee to do the same, and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee we expect will also do the same … All three committees look to be ready to move on this, and we hope to be a resource and a cheerleader for getting it done as soon as possible.
We're very interested in having a quantum czar to lead that effort and be an evangelist, frankly, throughout the rest of government. The quantum czar is something that the president can do on his own. This would be more of an outside-facing, rest of government-facing position. It doesn't have to be official. It can be relatively informal but would have the role of helping get the entire federal government on board with quantum.
You recently endorsed Michael Kratsios to direct the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and have sent letters to the new House Science leadership and President Donald Trump. Who are the key figures in the administration that you're looking to for help in advancing your priorities? Have you already been in communication with them?
Well, Donald and I aren't texting frequently [laughs]. No, certainly the president himself has indicated that he views quantum as a priority. He obviously signed the [NQI] into law in 2018, along with Kratsios. So we definitely believe that Michael Kratsios is going to be a key player in the administration. Beyond that, we do anticipate that National Security Advisor Waltz is going to be promoting quantum from a military perspective, and especially on the clocks and sensors side.
And we do think it will have pretty broad support throughout the administration. Obviously on the Hill, the chairs and ranking members of the three committees I mentioned, and then we also have had a lot of support from appropriators to make sure that the money not just for the National Quantum Initiative, but for defense quantum research and development is also available.
I'm not in a position to say one way or another what we're hearing from the people I write to. But what we can say publicly is that we're pleased with the level of attention that quantum has already gotten from this administration and leaders in this Congress.
What's your argument to Republican fiscal hawks and the DOGE effort, which is pushing for cuts right now across various agencies and asking for a defense of spending in various areas? What are you pointing them to that justifies government investment in quantum's future potential?
I have heard no serious suggestion for becoming second [to China] on quantum technology. Everybody readily understands that quantum computing, quantum clocks and sensors, quantum networking, quantum communication and post quantum cryptography are critically important from a national security perspective.
That's just not something we can allow ourselves to fall behind on, and nobody is suggesting otherwise. People are not suggesting, 'oh we could spend our money elsewhere.' This is one of the most salient technologies. It's commonly listed alongside things like AI and hypersonics as the areas where we need to lead. So I'm not worried about playing defense against DOGE. I'm eager for their help to focus resources in this area.
Some have warned about the loss of tech expertise across government, as a result of staff cuts to agencies like NSF that play a big role in translational research. Is that something you are worried about affecting quantum?
Not specifically. I think obviously we're seeing a certain amount of disruption as DOGE does its work. I expect that areas like quantum that are of significant national priority for the United States will turn out to be priorities when all is said and done.
One debate in the field is over the smartest approach to building coherent quantum systems. Some companies have focused on making a smaller number of qubits work more efficiently. Others are looking at just increasing the total number of qubits in a system. Where do you see that headed? Is it close to being resolved? Does it need to be?
I'm laughing because nothing's close to being resolved anywhere. The question is really how to organize a quantum computer, and the answer is, let's try all the different ways and let companies make whatever bets they think are best and see what happens. I don't expect there will be a right answer across all applications. I think at least for the foreseeable future, we'll have companies trying several different kinds of approach[es], and some of those approaches may work better than others for one kind of application, and some may work for others. Or there may be approaches that just don't work, and it's possible that there's an approach that will work best across the board.
But the wonderful thing is we can just let the market essentially place those bets, let companies based on their proprietary research etc. place the best bet they can, and if they're wrong, then that's fine. The U.S. taxpayer isn't on the hook for that. Odds are at least one of those companies or one of those areas of research is going to pan out.
return to sender
Washington's whiplash over Elon Musk's email demands seems far from over.
POLITICO's Megan Messerly reported this afternoon on the Trump White House pushing back against the Musk-inspired request fromthe Office of Personnel Management for ever federal workforce to respond to an email explaining five tasks they accomplished over the previous week. An anonymous White House official said Monday morning federal employees should defer to agency heads about how to respond, as many have said they simply should not.
'It's a case-by-case basis. It's not a one-size-fits-all approach,' the official said. 'If Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio has a different execution plan for what works for his department, he's going to determine that … The goal here is to one, execute the president's mission, which OPM has sent out that guidance, and then there's a conversation about how that looks, how that works.'
An anonymous official in national security said that the order could have unintended consequences: 'The concern is that information … gives a robust data set that could be used not by people in our own government but people outside of our own government, which is why you saw national security related and adjacent departments and agencies respond forcefully.'
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