Can Quantum Computing Tame AI's Energy Appetite

The United States Department of Energy (DoE) is offering up $215 million in funding to help domestic firms develop the world’s first reliable quantum computer. The race to unlock quantum computing has heated up as the next-gen technology has arisen as a potential solution to the Pandora's box of energy demand that the AI boom has opened.  

The DoE’s Quantum Genesis Q Competition is now accepting proposals on ideas for how to “deploy quantum computers with at least 100 logical qubits that are capable of performing hundreds of millions of fault-tolerant operations and scientific demonstration programs.” DoE  Undersecretary for Science Darío Gil says that the competition is encouraging the involvement of the commercial sector through Quantum Genesis Q “to allow both collaboration and competition to take place … to bring the best of the competitive spirits” as part of its broader goal to ensure that the United States establishes itself as the leader of the global quantum computing race. 

In addition, the DoE has rolled out a complementary program called the Quantum High-Performance Computing Validation and Verification Testbed Lab Call, which is soliciting proposals from the United States’ network of national laboratories “to develop and apply a complete set of necessary tools and expertise to perform performance verification of fault tolerant quantum computers.”