MD partners with Defense Department to advance quantum computing

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COLLEGE PARK — Maryland has entered an agreement with a U.S. Defense Department agency to test quantum computing prototypes and systems for potential national security and commercial uses.

Last summer, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency established a similar partnership in Illinois to develop a national proving ground for quantum computing.

“The future of quantum is here, and it’s in Illinois,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement at the time.

Gov. Wes Moore, meanwhile, has said he wants Maryland to be “the capital of the quantum world.”

In January, he and leaders from the University of Maryland and from the College Park-based quantum computing company IonQ announced an initiative to generate more than $1 billion in the state’s quantum industry by 2030, drawing on state funding, matching federal grants, private-sector investments and philanthropic contributions.

The agreement that Moore and others announced on Monday could bring in up to $100 million in federal funding over the next four years to match the state’s investments in quantum computing, a field of computer science that relies on quantum mechanics to solve problems and perform calculations that even the most powerful classical computers cannot.

“By increasing lifespan, by increasing quality of life, by increasing our connectivity, quantum is going to have a remarkable impact on the human condition,” Moore said during an event Monday celebrating the agreement. “And its home is going to be right here in Maryland.”

The Moore administration’s memorandum of understanding with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is part of a quantum benchmarking program at the agency to determine if any quantum computing approach can reach utility-scale operation by 2033.

Agency program manager Joe Altepeter said part of the goal is to separate “hype from reality” in quantum computing.

Altepeter said there are about 10 different quantum computing technologies that more than 30 companies are trying to build. It’s difficult, he added, to determine when a technology can be a critical step toward changing the world.

Working with scientists at the University of Maryland Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, which is one of 15 university-affiliated research centers in the country that support the Department of Defense, Altepeter said his team will be looking to determine exactly if and how a quantum computer can become more than “just a good science project” and be transformative, serving as an essential industrial tool for decades.

“I have been a quantum skeptic for a long time,” he said. “But, because of recent advances … I have started to think in the past couple of years that maybe we can change the world with quantum computing. Maybe it is possible.”

Altepeter said the partnership with the Moore administration and the University of Maryland will lead to a definitive answer in the coming years.