(June 2, 2023) Today, the National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee (NQIAC) published its first independent assessment of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) program, including recommendations for enhancements to the Program, in a report titled, Renewing the National Quantum Initiative: Recommendations for Sustaining American Leadership in Quantum Information Science.

Highlighting the Air Force Research Lab in Rome, NY

(May 3, 2023) The National Science Foundation issued a Request for Information to gather insights for the development of an investment roadmap for its Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP). The “CHIPS and Science Act” tasks the TIP Directorate with developing a roadmap to guide investment decisions in use-inspired and translational research over a three-year time frame to advance U.S. competitiveness and develop the U.S. workforce in 10 critical technology areas and to address societal, national and geostrategic challenges. Quantum information science and technology is one of the critical technology focus areas.

(May 2, 2023) The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Information Innovation Office (I2O) is sponsoring a Proposers Day to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the anticipated Quantum Augmented Network (QuANET) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA). DARPA’s QuANET program will develop a hybrid quantum-classical communication network architecture to enable quantum enhancements to security and covertness on today’s classical networks. The program seeks to augment existing software infrastructure and network protocols with quantum properties to mitigate some of the attack vectors that are pervasive on classical (non-quantum) networks.

(April 26, 2023) The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program is sponsoring a Basic Research Needs (BRN) Workshop in Quantum Computing and Quantum Networking.

Happy #WorldQuantumDay!

(April 13, 2023) It has been some time since I last wrote a director’s letter.  The eve of World Quantum Day is a great time to reflect on a pivotal year for national quantum policy. During this past year, the President signed two directives on quantum, and the White House Subcommittee on Quantum Information Science (QIS) augmented the national strategy with additional reports on the quantum workforce and for bringing quantum sensors out of the lab to the market. In addition, the United States signed six new bilateral quantum cooperation statements and launched a multilateral dialogue with twelve countries. The first major deliverable from the multilateral dialogue, the Entanglement Exchange, was released just a few months later. Congress passed major quantum-relevant legislation, like the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and Federal Agencies continued to work together and engage with the U.S. QIS community. Additional highlights can be found below and in this year’s Annual Report of the NQI Program.