Why America Needs a Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer — Built Here
Today’s post is co-authored with Dr. Prineha Narang, who is a Professor at UCLA, an Operating Partner at DCVC, and a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. We discussed the topics in this piece, among others related to quantum technologies, with Benjamin Guggenheim of the Washington Post for the AI and Tech. You can read it here.
We are quickly approaching an era of fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC), a technological leap that will be more socially and financially transformative than even our current advances in artificial intelligence. To ensure America leads this technology, a Manhattan Project 2.0. is needed. And on May 21, President Trump and Secretary of Commerce Lutnick announced nine letters of intent to execute investment deals between the Department of Commerce and both companies building quantum computers and quantum foundries. These firms, with support from the U.S. government, are key to advancing American leadership in quantum technologies, and hopefully ensure the first FTQC is built by an American company, on American soil.
FTQC is a step-change in computational capability akin to the change in going from a bottle rocket to SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy booster. This computational advance will shape the balance of global economic and military power over the next century. FTQC stands to enable entirely new therapeutics via simulations of molecular interactions, materials scientists to identify and create new synthetic properties for aerospace and transportation, grid operators to identify and extract greater energy efficiency, and military strategists to map, plan, and identify threats with unrivaled precision.
Unsurprisingly, the United States is not alone in recognizing the critical nature of getting to FTQC first. The People’s Republic of China is channeling billions of dollars into quantum technologies. Research coming out of the PRC is on par, if not ahead, of what is happening in American labs. And the industrial capacity and state-directed spending to enable Chinese firms to dominate key inputs for advanced technologies is a well-worn strategy. Today, American companies are forced to rely on sources from our greatest adversary, a vulnerability which cannot be tolerated for a technology of such importance.
Being first to FTQC—like being first to build the bomb—matters for two reasons. First, it would confer a dominant position in a new substrate of computation over rival nations: the ability to break adversaries’ cryptography, model their systems, and outpace their planning would create a powerful coercive lever, deterring provocation by raising its cost. Second, the maturation of the technology promises to unlock unprecedented scientific and economic gains. Just as the Manhattan Project seeded the civilian nuclear industry, summiting FTQC will open onto a vast landscape of technological opportunity.
But reaching that summit will demand the kind of techno-industrial commitment that defined the Manhattan Project itself. Every link in the chain, from component sourcing to supply-chain security to domestic investment, must be locked down. This is an all-encompassing effort, requiring sustained coordination among scientific researchers, American industrialists, military strategists, and the federal government. No single constituency can deliver it alone.
The deals announced by the Department of Commerce are aimed at providing investments to companies working to build a utility-scale FTQC within the next three years. The companies that have signed letters of intent will receive capital from the U.S. government in exchange for building these systems domestically. But because no such system has ever existed, no single path to the finish line is yet defined. Each company has a roadmap, accelerated by this strategic investment.
Building utility-scale FTQC requires significant specialized materials, engineering design, and manufacturing capacity which require sustained investment and security. Some quantum technologies leverage conventional CMOS fabrication and photonic components, and overlap with existing industrial processes for semiconductors, satellites, batteries, and other electronics. Others, however, are unique to or driven entirely by the production and deployment of quantum systems.
Today’s investment by the President and Department of Commerce is the first of many steps that government, industry, and the research ecosystem must take to ensure that the first fault-tolerant computer built is at home right here in the United States.
A targeted Commerce investment could confer a decisive lead in a novel technology— and, structured properly, the taxpayer would capture the upside. The fault-tolerant quantum computer must be built here — because the alternative is reading our adversary’s press release announcing they got there first, on a morning we will not get to choose.