US Launches $215 Million Race to Build an Error-Corrected Quantum Computer by 2028

Quantum computers could eventually solve scientific problems beyond the reach of conventional supercomputers, but today’s machines are too error-prone for practical work. The US Department of Energy has now launched a $215 million competition challenging teams to build a scientifically useful, fault-tolerant quantum computer by 2028.

In recent years, both governments and companies have ploughed huge sums of money into quantum computing in the hope of cracking problems in fields like chemistry and materials science. But despite significant progress, the qubits these machines rely on remain fragile and prone to errors that can quickly derail calculations.

This means the technology has so far remained confined to tackling toy problems, and it’s now widely agreed that they won’t be of practical use until they achieve full fault-tolerance. But error-correction schemes rely on spreading information across many qubits to create so-called “logical qubits,” which requires much larger devices than have been demonstrated so far.

Now, the Department of Energy hopes to accelerate the advent of fault-tolerant quantum computers with the Quantum Genesis Q Competition. With a total prize pot of $215 million, the contest challenges private companies to deliver a machine with at least 100 logical qubits that can tackle scientifically relevant calculations by 2028.