Julia Dickson and Emily Harding
Quantum technologies will revolutionize computing power, encryption and decryption, and sensing, potentially creating a crucial advantage or a critical failure in strategic competition. Experts assess that the United States leads China overall in quantum technologies, but that lead is in peril. The U.S. government must work closely with industry and its allies to stay ahead. To discuss opportunities for the U.S. government to collaborate with industry and its partners and allies on the development of quantum technologies, CSIS convened experts from the U.S. and Five Eyes (FVEY) governments, industry, and the think tank community.
The conversation identified four key challenges to collaboration and potential ways to mitigate them: acquiring sufficient capital, supporting the supply chain, addressing human capital scarcity, navigating export controls, and strengthening partnerships.
Challenge 1: Acquiring Sufficient Capital
The emerging quantum computing industry faces a particular challenge of securing sufficient, patient, trusted capital for two related reasons. First, specific use cases for quantum computing are real but unproven; communicating them is a challenge. Participants discussed extensively the challenge of expressing that quantum does not have a specific special use case but that powerful computing can solve problems in many industries, ranging from aerospace to pharma to finance, and generate billions of dollars in net income for end users. Still, clearly defining use cases will better draw in equity, funding investments from the fundamental science to devices, prototypes, and supporting technologies.
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