US funds $20 M for quantum lab teams and launches Quantum Genesis program

The U.S. National Science Foundation is allocating a total of $20 million to five new research teams to design components of a National Quantum Virtual Laboratory. The funding, which follows earlier awards to four other projects, aims to integrate quantum sensors, networks and computers into a unified system for practical applications. Participants include the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, the Department of Energy’s national labs and more than two dozen companies such as Boeing, Honeywell and IonQ. NSF director Brian Stone said the effort will bring together “America’s unmatched array of brilliant people working on quantum science and tech” that are often siloed.

Separately, the Department of Energy has inaugurated the Quantum Genesis initiative, targeting a scientifically relevant fault‑tolerant quantum computer by 2028. The program will run a Q Competition to demonstrate logical qubits in the low‑hundreds, establish a National Quantum Supercomputing User Facility, and fund research across chemistry, materials science, plasma physics and high‑energy physics. DOE secretary Chris Wright emphasized that the initiative will “bring together America’s National Laboratories, universities, and private sector innovators” to achieve this milestone.