The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $218 million in funding for 85 research awards in the field of quantum information science (QIS). The awards were made in conjunction with the White House Summit on Advancing American Leadership in QIS, highlighting a multidisciplinary area of research expected to lay the foundation for the next generation of computing, information processing, and other technologies. The awards were granted to scientists at 28 institutions of higher learning across the nation, along with nine DOE national laboratories, covering a range of topics from developing hardware and software for a new generation of quantum computers, to the synthesis and characterization of new materials with special quantum properties, to probing the ways in which quantum computing and information processing provide insights into cosmic phenomena such as dark matter and black holes. Quantum computers will be capable of solving certain large, extremely complex problems that lie entirely beyond the capacity of even today’s most powerful supercomputers. Among other applications, quantum systems also hold out promise as potentially exquisitely sensitive sensors, with a variety of possible medical, national security, and scientific applications down the road as well as encryption capabilities in cybersecurity. The DOE’s program offices of Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR), Basic Energy Sciences (BES), and High Energy Physics (HEP) participated in the initiative and are separately administering the awards, which were made on the basis of competitive peer review.
