The Department of Energy announced $625 million in funding Tuesday to renew five quantum research centers established under the first Trump administration.
Each research center is set to receive $125 million in funding over the next five years, as they study different facets of quantum science and technology, which relies on the principles of quantum mechanics.
This includes the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage at Brookhaven National Laboratory, Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Q-NEXT at Argonne National Laboratory, Quantum Systems Accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
“President Trump positioned America to lead the world in quantum science and technology and today, a new frontier of scientific discovery lies before us,” Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil said in a statement.
“Breakthroughs in QIS have the potential to revolutionize the ways we sense, communicate, and compute, sparking entirely new technologies and industries,” he continued.
Quantum research received a boost during President Trump’s first term with the passage of the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018, allocating $1.2 billion to the newly created research centers and other quantum efforts.
The National Quantum Initiative Program underlying this push is authorized through 2029. However, several provisions of the law lapsed in 2023.
A group of bipartisan senators, including Sens. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Todd Young (R-Ind.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.), introduced legislation last December to reauthorize the law and allocate $2.7 billion in federal funding to quantum research. No such bill has been introduced this Congress.
