Academia, Government, and Industry Collaboration Will Achieve Breakthroughs in Quantum Technologies

(Forbes) A long tradition of government-academia-industry collaboration will achieve new technological breakthroughs in quantum technologies, according to Gil Press, Forbes’ Senior Contributor Enterprise & Cloud.
The most prominent example of such a successful collaboration in the past is the internet, launched a half century ago as a government-sponsored initiative that included academic research centers and private companies developing new hardware and software.
Now, the Department of Energy (DOE) is spearheading the development of a national quantum internet, “bringing the United States to the forefront of the global quantum race and ushering in a new era of communications.” DOE’s 17 National Laboratories will serve as the backbone of the planned “virtually unhackable” internet, which will require “intense coordination” between various Federal agencies, academic institutions, and industry.
The National Quantum Initiative Act also led also to the establishment last year of The Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C), overseen by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and working to create a robust U.S. quantum ecosystem and marketplace, develop standards and quantum-trained workforce, and coordinate partnerships with government agencies.
The Chicago Quantum Exchange is another meeting place for collaboration and community creation for National Laboratories (Argonne and Fermi), universities (University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Northwestern University) and a number of large corporations (e.g., Boeing, Applied Materials, JPMorgan Chase) and startups (e.g., Rigetti Computing).
Next month, the Chicago Quantum Exchange is launching its first certificate program in Quantum Engineering and Technology. It is aimed at professionals working for companies as engineers or computer scientists or industrial researchers who could be oriented towards quantum engineering. “
All together now—academia, government, and industry—joining forces on the way to quantum supremacy.