(May 26, 2021)  The National Science Foundation (NSF) has long supported research to advance quantum information science and engineering (QIS) from laboratory theory into practical reality and lay the foundations for the next century of quantum discovery. Building on this core investment in QIS, NSF launched a series of investments to catalyze discovery by fostering multidisciplinary collaborations connecting underlying quantum principles with future quantum systems. This multi-pronged effort is aimed at advancing the fundamental understanding of quantum phenomena, materials, and systems toward revolutionary advances in quantum information science. As the science and engineering enterprise continues to expand, global engagement is necessary to address the most complex research challenges, including those being explored through NSF awards in quantum information science and engineering, including QIS and Quantum Leap.

(May 18th, 2021) The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Notice of Special Interest with the purpose of informing potential applicants to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of NIDA’s interest in grant applications that will develop or utilize advanced computational approaches to describe complex drug-disease relationships in ways that will rapidly advance the development of new treatments, allow for targeted funding of substance use disorder (SUD) drug discovery and improve health care. NIDA has a particular interest in applications that include approaches in one or more of the following categories: 1) artificial intelligence, including machine learning and deep learning, 2) supercomputing/parallel computing, and/or 3) quantum computing.

(MAY 6, 2021) Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $10 million for interdisciplinary research in Quantum Information Science (QIS) and nuclear physics. The aim of this funding is to draw on the expertise and capabilities of the nuclear physics community to advance areas of interest such as quantum computing and quantum sensors, and using advances in QIS to expand our understanding of nuclear physics.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $11 million for ten projects in Quantum Information Science (QIS) with relevance to fusion and plasma science.

There is a pressing need in Quantum Information Science & Technology (QIST) for new and broader talent. One innovation may be in developing approaches to teaching QIST concepts at multiple levels of expertise (but especially undergraduate to mid-career) to engineers, computer scientists, and physicists. Research proposals are sought in innovative collaborative learning concepts for quantum information science, to include the methodologies, pedagogy, and essential principles that effectively leverage classroom and laboratory experiences to train a diverse quantum workforce of the future. These projects should focus on methods applicable to higher education for the training and retraining of technical individuals that have a range of experiences and knowledge. Practical implementations coupled with evaluation of efficacy are highly desired. Some examples of research activities may include:

The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) in collaboration with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) is soliciting proposals for research in the next New and Emerging Qubit Science and Technology (nextNEQST) program. nextNEQST focuses on qubit systems that explore new operating regimes and environments, fundamentally new methods of fabrication, and new methods of design, control, or operation. These explorations should have in mind the development of quantum computation where the novel properties of these systems create significant advantages in coherence, fabrication, and/or qubit operation over current state-of-the-art qubits.

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.

Today the National Security Agency’s Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS) launched the LPS Qubit Collaboratory (LQC), a Quantum Information Science research center in support of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. The LQC offers a mechanism for collaborative research between LPS and academia, industry, FFRDCs, and Government Laboratories. The mission of the LQC is to:

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.

Although universal fault-tolerant quantum computers – with millions of physical quantum bits (or qubits) – may be a decade or two away, quantum computing research continues apace. It has been hypothesized that quantum computers will one day revolutionize information processing across a host of military and civilian applications from pharmaceuticals discovery, to advanced batteries, to machine learning, to cryptography. A key missing element in the race toward fault-tolerant quantum systems, however, is meaningful metrics to quantify how useful or transformative large quantum computers will actually be once they exist.