US Department of War Invests $350 Million in Quantum Computing

The United States Department of War announced approximately $350 million in quantum computing initiatives on October 8 to strengthen national security and maintain a technological edge over adversaries, specifically China. Managed by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, the program targets mission-relevant applications in physics, chemistry, and materials science to develop more lethal and cost-effective weapons and platforms.

As part of the funding package, the Office of Strategic Capital issued a $150 million conditional loan to PsiQuantum to support the prototyping and manufacturing of photonic quantum computing technology in the U.S. Simultaneously, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency allocated roughly $200 million to advance four quantum-computing providers to Stage C of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative to validate utility-scale systems. DARPA will also host application workshops starting before January 2027.

These initiatives follow a June executive order from the Trump administration and respond to reports of China using industrial-scale funding to seize dominance in the field. The strategy complements broader efforts by NASA, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Energy to update laboratories and protect federally funded research from foreign exploitation.