Is Quantum Computing The New Manhattan Project? The Evidence

Quantum Policy

Quantum computing has been called the Manhattan Project of our time. The money says otherwise. America, the largest spender that publishes its budget, signed or announced about $3.4 billion for quantum in 2026, a third of the wartime project’s yearly spend in today’s prices and under a twentieth of its weight in the economy.

The quantum Manhattan Project is a phrase people reach for when they want quantum computing to sound urgent. In March 2026 the former British security minister Tom Tugendhat wrote that quantum “is a modern-day Manhattan Project”. On the evidence the comparison fails. The wartime project spent $2.2 billion between 1942 and 1945, about $10 billion a year in 2025 prices, and as a share of the American economy it equals about $83 billion a year today. America, the biggest spender on quantum that publishes its budget, reaches about a third of the first rate and under a twentieth of the second.

The deeper gap is in what the money buys. A Manhattan Project is an order, in which a government specifies a machine, pays for it to be built and takes delivery. No government has placed one for a quantum computer. The Department of Energy wants a fault-tolerant machine for science by 2028, but it offers prizes for milestones rather than buying the machine. Only $2.5 million of its $215 million came from the 2026 budget year. The rest depends on Congress.