US quantum policy

What happened

The phrase quantum executive order entered the American policy vocabulary on 22 June 2026, when the White House signed two orders on the same day and published them in the Federal Register three days later, on 25 June. Together they set the direction of federal quantum policy for the rest of the decade, pairing a defensive measure with an ambitious one. Read alongside the money that accompanies them, the two orders explain why so much of the current quantum market runs through Washington rather than through ordinary commercial demand.

The two orders

The first quantum executive order, EO 14412, carries the title “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks” and mandates the migration of federal systems to post-quantum cryptography. It is the defensive half: an acknowledgement that the encryption protecting government data will not survive a capable quantum computer, and an instruction to replace it on a fixed timetable. The second, EO 14413, “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation”, is the expansive half. It directs an update to the National Quantum Strategy and commissions work on workforce institutes, quantum sensing and networking plans, and strategies to secure a domestic supply chain for the components a quantum industry needs.

The money

Policy on paper achieves little without appropriations, and here the numbers are substantial. In May the administration announced roughly $2bn in funding incentives and equity stakes, drawn from appropriations under the CHIPS and Science Act, spread across nine companies that include D-Wave and Rigetti. Separately, a proposed $1bn award to IBM would fund what is billed as America’s first purpose-built quantum foundry, a dedicated facility for manufacturing quantum processors to a common standard rather than hand-building them in university laboratories, a step every maturing hardware industry eventually takes. Underneath the headline sums, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency continued its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, announcing Stage B selections that narrow the field of companies whose claims it considers worth testing.

The equity stakes

The equity stakes are the most striking feature. By taking positions in companies such as D-Wave and Rigetti rather than simply awarding grants, the government is behaving less like a customer and more like an investor, tying public finances directly to the fortunes of named firms. Grants, once spent, are gone; an equity stake binds the taxpayer to whatever the company becomes. That is unusual for a technology this immature, and it signals a judgement that quantum computing is strategic enough to warrant industrial policy of a kind more often reserved for defence or semiconductors.

Why the analysis differs

The useful conclusion to draw from all this is about the character of the revenue, not its size alone. A substantial share of near-term quantum income is government infrastructure spending: money committed through a quantum executive order, an appropriation or a defence programme rather than earned from paying commercial users. That distinction changes how the sector should be read. Government spending follows slower and more durable rules than commercial technology demand. It is harder to win, tied to strategy and appropriations cycles, and less prone to evaporate in a downturn, though it is also not the same thing as a market of customers buying a product because it solves their problem.

For anyone following the field, the quantum executive orders are worth watching as a leading indicator. Whether the migration deadlines in EO 14412 hold, whether the National Quantum Strategy update produces concrete programmes, and whether the equity stakes and the IBM foundry proposal survive contact with budgets will say more about the real trajectory of American quantum computing than any single hardware announcement. The policy has set the frame; delivery against it is the test to come. For the wider technology, see our quantum explainers and the main quantum hub.