President Trump on Monday signed two executive orders aimed at accelerating U.S. quantum computing, according to multiple outlets including Reuters, The Wall Street Journal and NBC News.
Reuters reports the orders call for building a powerful quantum computer for scientific research and for speeding up the nation's broader quantum efforts. The Wall Street Journal, via Techmeme, notes the administration set an ambitious new 2028 target — the end of Trump's term — for a system capable of conducting scientific research. Yahoo Finance describes the goal as a "commercially relevant" machine by 2028.
The second thrust is security. According to Yahoo Finance and The Hill, the orders direct intelligence agencies to defend and bolster U.S. quantum research and push the government toward "post-quantum" cybersecurity. CyberScoop reports agencies are being told to speed up post-quantum migration. This is tied to what TheStreet and Decrypt call "Q-Day" — the point at which quantum machines could break today's encryption, a risk Bitcoin Magazine and Decrypt say is especially relevant to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
The industry was paying attention. CNBC reports that executives from Alphabet and IBM attended the signing, and Barron's examined what the orders mean for quantum firms such as IonQ and Infleqtion. The Quantum Insider gathered industry reactions. MSN notes the move follows an earlier funding package in May.
Why it matters: quantum computers promise breakthroughs in science and industry, but the same power threatens the encryption that protects banking, communications and digital money — so the government is racing to build the technology and defend against it at the same time.