WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced a plan to provide $25 million for basic research toward the development of a quantum internet.

A recent Funding Announcement Opportunity (FOA) was released for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI) awards. This year’s MURI announcement has several opportunities that touch on quantum sensing, quantum communication and quantum computing.

The State of Quantum

The DOE Office of Science program in Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) announces its interest in entanglement management and control in transparent optical quantum communications networks. Recently, tremendous progress has been made in understanding how quantum information with its complex characterization can be geographically distributed to achieve extraordinary capabilities that are impossible using classical optical telecommunication networks. This process involves quantum entanglement, a complex and valuable but perishable resource in which the transmitted quantum information is encoded. Although the transmission of an entanglement state over a dedicated single-hop channel has been successfully demonstrated, the distribution of a large number (several thousand) of entangled states in multi-hop and multiuser mesh-topology quantum networks remains an open challenge.

A team of researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, along with external collaborators, has taken an important step toward developing efficient quantum communications networks that connect quantum devices while preserving the delicate states of the particles used to transmit information by harnessing the frequency, or color, of light. Such capabilities could contribute to more practical and large-scale quantum networks exponentially more powerful and secure than the classical networks we have today.

ROME, N.Y. – Researchers at the Air Force Research Laboratory Information Directorate here have measured the energy relaxation and coherence times of superconducting quantum bits (qubits), two important characteristics that determine how long qubits can retain quantum information.

The NSTC Subcommittee on QIS, with input from its interagency working group on quantum networking, released A Coordinated Approach to Quantum Networking Research in January 2021. This strategy document offers recommendations that build upon A Strategic Vision for America’s Quantum Networks.

The NSF Quantum Interconnect Challenges for Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (QuIC – TAQS) program is designed to support interdisciplinary teams that will explore highly innovative, original, and potentially transformative ideas for developing and applying quantum science, quantum computing, and quantum engineering in the specific area of quantum interconnects. Proposals should have the potential to deliver new concepts, new platforms, and/or new approaches that will implement the transfer of quantum states efficiently across platforms and over large length scales. Progress in the area of quantum interconnects will enable breakthroughs in quantum sensing, quantum communications, quantum simulations, and quantum computing systems. This Quantum Interconnect Challenges solicitation will support the process of translating such ideas into reality.