(Allison Schwartz) – The new White House Office of Science and Technology director, Michael Kratsios, recently stated that “the shape of future global order will be defined by whomever leads across AI, quantum, nuclear, and other critical and emerging technologies. Chinese progress in nuclear fusion, quantum technologies, and autonomous systems all press home the urgency of the work ahead.”
He couldn’t be more right.
Positioning the United States as a global leader on emerging technologies is imperative to our national security, economy and technological leadership.
That’s why the United States cannot afford to have a “that’s always how it’s been done” attitude.
President Trump has tasked his administration to look beyond legacy systems and embrace emerging technologies that could drive efficiencies by optimizing public services and addressing complex challenges facing the federal government.
In a letter to Kratsios, the president urged accelerating efforts to support advancing research, development and adoption of emerging technologies, including quantum and AI, to disrupt antiquated operations, and support domestic supply chains and manufacturing.
The call to innovate and act quickly could help hasten the public sector’s digital transformation.
This is especially critical for quantum technologies as U.S. quantum programs don’t reflect rapid advancements by the quantum industry since the National Quantum Initiative, which created the first U.S. quantum program, was signed into law in 2018.
Current U.S. quantum programs are narrowly focused on research and development of gate-model quantum computing, overlooking other approaches such as annealing or quantum-hybrid technologies where quantum and classical solutions work together.
Moreover, domestic programs are not developing near-term applications to address public-sector challenges. This limited focus could cause the United States to fall further behind other countries, allies and adversaries.
For example, China has stated that it has committed $15 billion toward quantum technologies for various uses.
Meanwhile, our allies and commercial entities are building and deploying practical quantum and hybrid applications to provide solutions to a difficult problems such as optimizing manufacturing, emergency management, and new drug discovery in the United Kingdom, using autonomous vehicles for farming in Canada, and addressing the dynamic use of telecommunications networks in Japan.
In addition, Canada recently released a roadmap laying out clear timelines and goals using all quantum technologies, and the European Union is exploring how quantum solutions can be applied to air traffic management.
As U.S. officials review government programs and services, it’s critical that they fill the gap between conducting research and fast-tracking the deployment of emerging technologies.
The first step is to task each agency with identifying use cases for testing and evaluation to showcase near-term return on investment.
Some of this work has already begun. The Transportation Department issued a report citing missions that could benefit from quantum technologies, such as optimized emergency evacuation routing and more efficient infrastructure and aviation.
The Quantum Economic Development Consortium has released reports identifying use cases for grid resilience and transportation. Quantum has also been used to support supply chain strain for port operations.
Quantum solutions might help other federal agencies with challenges such as optimizing domestic manufacturing through the Department of Commerce’s manufacturing institutes.
The departments of interior and energy could boost domestic energy production through optimized operations, and the Department of Veterans Affairs could better address the healthcare needs of veterans.
However, fully advancing quantum across the federal government will also require swift action from Congress.
Lawmakers must reauthorize and expand the National Quantum Initiative, which lapsed in September 2023. To benefit from the more advanced quantum technology, the NQI must include all quantum technologies and include near-term application development and longer-term research.
Congress must also enact quantum-focused legislation like several bipartisan bills that were recently introduced.
The Quantum Sandbox for Near-Term Applications Act establishes a public-private partnership for near-term quantum application development and acceleration.
The Defense Quantum Acceleration Act provides a framework for the Department of Defense and its service branches to identify problems that could be addressed by quantum technologies, and the Advancing Quantum Manufacturing Act would improve coordination for quantum development between the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.
At a time when leaders are searching for fast, far-reaching results, an “all-of-the-above” approach to emerging technologies that includes all quantum computing technologies, AI, cloud computing and more is the only way to deliver public-sector efficiencies.
Moving quickly to adopt these technologies will have an immediate, positive effect on the country’s national security, economy and global leadership.
Allison Schwartz is the vice president of global government relations and public affairs at D-Wave. She wrote this for InsideSources.com, published 4/30/25. The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Nevada News & Views.
