The next wave of Federal quantum funding will be focused on the deployment of quantum technologies, a top Trump administration official disclosed on Thursday, saying the administration already has plans underway to reach that deployment stage.
“The first wave of the National Quantum Initiative … funding … was, to a larger degree, focused on science,” said Paul Dabbar, deputy secretary of the Department of Commerce, while speaking at the Quantum Economic Development Consortium’s Quantum Tech Showcase on Capitol Hill.
“I think our intent always way back when was that the next case, at the end of the five-year period, that there would be a shift, not-not discovering science – and nobody can say that – but how do we jump start … first devices, first deployment … and that’s where we’re at,” said Dabbar.
The National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act, which runs through 2029, established a program to accelerate quantum research and development, with a focus on quantum computing, economic development, and promoting national security.
Authorizations for some research and development (R&D) activities under the original law expired in September 2023. Efforts to reauthorize the NQI have been introduced first in the House in 2023 and in the Senate in late 2024, but have not yet been implemented.
Dabbar told industry and Federal officials that while reauthorization has not yet happened, President Donald Trump and his administration have begun planning for the device and deployment stage of the act.
“We’ve already been formulating the specific plans on exactly what we should do, and we are doing it the way we did it before,” Dabbar said, explaining that the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Departments of Commerce and Energy, and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are working together to evaluate the “current environment” for quantum deployment.
The deputy secretary added that those plans include looking at licenses, though he did not provide details. He also alluded to the possibility that an upcoming National Quantum Strategy will include specific actions for individual Federal agencies to carry out.
Congressional Support for Reauthorization
Meanwhile, bipartisan lawmakers and Federal officials at the event also spoke in support of reauthorizing the NQI, with Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., noting that sustained funding remains critical as quantum moves into the commercialization stage.
“Investments have totaled over $3 billion just in the last five years, and there’s a lot of additional good basic science that needs to be done – we need to make sure that those Federal investments continue to occur,” said Rep. Obernolte who chairs the House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology.
Rep. Obernolte’s vows to reauthorize the NQI this year were echoed by Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., who noted that integrating quantum and artificial intelligence capabilities would be well worth the investment and is “not a huge obligation.”
“If you now have AI assistance that actually can turn real-world problems into things that you can actually do on quantum machines, this could become commercially affordable,” said Rep. Foster, while pointing to successes in the quantum field.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., the ranking member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, noted that while there is increased interest in funding for quantum, other areas of science spending have been cut.
“The bad news is that there is an assault on science research by this administration … you can’t have science without science,” said Rep. Lofgren. “Fortunately, some of our appropriators are understanding that and [are] moving in a direction quite different than has been suggested by the administration.”
In its fiscal year 2026 budget request, the Trump administration requested that NSF receive a 56 percent budget cut and that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) budget be cut by $325 million. The administration made exceptions for funding going toward AI and quantum-related initiatives.
However, appropriators have been diverting from the budget request, with a House panel approving earlier this week an increase in NIST funding compared to current 2025 enacted levels.