Defense Firms Urged to Fully Invest in Quantum Technology

(FifthDomain) A review of SEC filings from five of America’s top cybersecurity contractors–Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and Leidos–found that only one, Booz Allen Hamilton, included quantum computing in its 2018 prospectus.According to the intelligence community, experts and industry officials, the coming quantum evolution has not jolted defense firms to fully invest yet in the technology.
Quantum computing is set to be a presence in these companies’ long-term reality. “If there is a killer application of quantum computing, it is almost certainly going to play into the hands of the Pentagon,” said Christopher Monroe, professor of physics at the University of Maryland and the head of IonQ, a quantum computer manufacturer. He continued, “Quantum computing needs strong collaboration between theory and practice.”
“The more interesting development so far has not been from defense contractors, but companies like Google, Intel, Microsoft and IBM — the big computing behemoths,” Monroe said.
A defense industry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said their company was interested in quantum computing, but business leaders and strategists did not see the short-term applications for the technology.