Today's Quantum Pulse
GAO flags $200M federal spend on quantum computing amid leadership vacuum
The Government Accountability Office reports that the United States is spending roughly $200 million annually on quantum computing. However, the National Quantum Initiative lacks a single designated lead agency, leaving responsibilities fragmented across multiple departments.
Also developing:
By the numbers: Orange Quantum Systems raises $16.2M seed round
Optical Switch Protocol Verifies Entangled Quantum States in Real Time without Destroying Them
Researchers at the University of Vienna have unveiled an optical‑switch protocol that can certify entangled quantum states in real time without destroying them. Traditional quantum state tomography requires repeated destructive measurements, making verification slow and resource‑intensive. The new method routes a fraction of photons through a weak‑measurement channel, preserving the remaining entangled qubits for further use. This breakthrough promises faster, scalable validation for quantum computers and quantum communication networks.
Start Crypto Agility Now Before Quantum Day Arrives
⏳ Data stolen today will be cracked tomorrow. Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) isn't a "next year" problem—it’s a multi-year migration that starts now. I’m looking for "Crypto Agility" on the floor at #RSAC2026. Are you ready for the Q-Day countdown? https://t.co/6PIC4o7OmO #QuantumSecurity...
C12 Demonstrates Tunable Metal–Insulator Transition in Ultra-Clean Carbon Nanotubes
C12 and collaborators published a Nature Communications study showing an electrically controlled metal‑insulator transition in ultra‑clean, suspended carbon nanotubes. Using a 15‑gate “keyboard” architecture, they tuned an energy gap from 200 µeV to 30 meV, demonstrating a synthetic charge‑density wave that mimics...
Crypto-Procrastination: The Dangerous Delay in Preparing for Post-Quantum Data Security
A Citi Institute report warns that a quantum‑enabled cyberattack on a top U.S. bank could jeopardize $2‑3.3 trillion of GDP, turning quantum computing from theory into an operational emergency. The article highlights the “harvest now, decrypt later” (HNDL) threat, where adversaries...
Joab Rosenberg, Partner at Deep33
In this episode, Yuval Boger talks with Joab Rosenberg, partner at Deep33, a new $100‑150 M venture fund targeting the future of compute, especially quantum computing. They examine the current state of quantum hardware, why Joab believes commercial applications will emerge...
Using Light to Probe Fractional Charges in a Fractional Chern Insulator
Researchers from the University of Washington, NIMS Japan, and ETH Zurich have experimentally detected a new quasiparticle—anyon‑trions—in twisted bilayer MoTe₂, confirming fractional charge excitations in a fractional Chern insulator (FCI). By tuning electron density and employing photoluminescence spectroscopy, they observed...
Willy Woo Warns Quantum Risk Is Eroding Bitcoin’s Edge over Gold
On‑chain analyst Willy Woo warns that the growing prospect of a quantum‑computing breakthrough – dubbed “Q‑Day” – is beginning to erode Bitcoin’s valuation edge over gold. He points to roughly 4 million lost BTC, about a quarter of the supply, whose public...
Guest Post — 2026 Global Strategy Briefing on AI And Quantum For Boards
Marvin Cheung’s briefing outlines the latest AI developments, including the rise of Moltbook forums and the evolution from large language models to 3‑D world models, while linking these advances to quantum computing. He explains how quantum technologies can both support...
Q-Day: Bank Quantum Attack Could Cost US Economy Trillions, Warns Citi
Citi warns that quantum computers could break public‑key encryption within the next decade, estimating a 19‑34% probability of a widespread breach by 2034 and 60‑82% by 2044. A successful quantum attack on a major U.S. bank could generate $2‑3.3 trillion in...
Government Claim to Crack RSA 2048 Raises Skepticism
If someone tells me on The Post-Quantum World that the government cracked RSA 2048, I will certainly have a followup question.
Quantum Delta’s QuantWare Launches Foundry Services to Lower Quantum Chip Barriers
QuantWare, the Delft‑based spin‑out of TU Delft/QuTech, launched its Foundry Services on December 1, 2022, offering third‑party access to its superconducting quantum‑chip fabrication line. The service provides external designers with industry‑leading processes, cutting the cost of quantum hardware to roughly one‑tenth of...
Grainger Illinois PQN Awarded Prize at UN International Year of Quantum Science & Technology Closing
The Public Quantum Network (PQN) received the inaugural Continental Quantum City Prize for North & Central America at the United Nations International Year of Quantum Science and Technology closing ceremony. Launched in November 2023 at Urbana’s Free Library, PQN is...
Clustrauth API by Smart Banner Hub Offers Quantum-Safe Document Authentication with Flexible Pricing
Smart Banner Hub introduced the Clustrauth API, a REST service that provides NIST FIPS 204‑compliant, quantum‑safe document signing using a hybrid Ed25519 and ML‑DSA signature scheme. The API allows developers to sign files up to 50 MB with three lines of code...
CO.LAB Receives LaunchTN Grant to Cultivate Quantum Commercialization Pathways Across Tennessee
CO.LAB secured a $1.2 million Launch Tennessee grant to launch the Quantum Activation Series, a statewide effort that begins March 12 at the University of Tennessee‑Chattanooga. The program will convene researchers, entrepreneurs and industry leaders to accelerate the commercialization of quantum research...
Singapore Budget 2026: S$37 Billion (US$29.3 Billion) RIE 2030 Plan Anchors Quantum as a Strategic Pillar
Singapore’s 2026 Budget unveiled a S$37 billion Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2030 plan, a 32% increase that keeps R&D spending at roughly 1% of GDP. Prime Minister Lawrence Wong highlighted quantum technology as a strategic growth pillar, announcing the country will...
AI‑Driven Spin Qubit PhD in Barcelona – Apply by Feb 28
PhD grant (4 years) in Barcelona (ICN2/TCN) — AI-Driven Multiscale Modelling of Spin Qubits for Scalable Quantum Devices ~€2,575/month gross | International environment | Apply by 28 Feb 2026 (24:00 CEST) Apply: https://t.co/7CSc9tlGbO Project: https://t.co/CCEbaZFYMG https://t.co/vLapeXaeAe
NSF Invests Up To $100 Million Over Five Years in National Quantum Research Network
The National Science Foundation announced a $100 million, five‑year National Quantum and Nanotechnology Infrastructure (NQNI) program. The initiative will establish up to 16 open‑access research sites offering advanced fabrication and characterization tools for quantum information science, biotechnology, AI, and semiconductor development....
QLDPC Cuts RSA‑2048 Attack to 100k Qubits
QLDPC for the win (and also a little bit scary) work by @IcebergQuantum reducing physical qubits to break RSA-2048 to only 100,000 which we probably aren’t that far away from. we aren’t ready for this. https://t.co/DUJQCeG72E
Photonic Claims “World-First” Quantum Teleportation Across Telus Fibre Network
Photonic announced it successfully teleported quantum information across 30 km of Telus’s commercial PureFibre network, marking the first time usable qubits have been transferred to a remote processing node on a live telecom backbone. The demonstration builds on earlier lab‑scale experiments...
New Methods Certify Photonic Quantum States Amid Indistinguishability
Photons are indistinguishable, and this makes certification - as it is relevant for photonic state preparations and computing - a subtle issue. We introduce methods and a mindset for certification of linear optical quantum state preparation that work in the...
Quantum Computing Threatens Private Encrypted Data, Experts Warn
I asked what else quantum could break @ChrisPeikert pointed out that we are overlooking the potential impact on our private encrypted data 👇 https://t.co/bFsCVAR5YD
Chief Science Advisor Urges Canada to Double Down on Quantum as Conservatives Question Advisor Role
Canada’s new Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer, told parliament that the country is among the world’s top five quantum research nations and called for a renewed, amplified investment in quantum technologies. She highlighted quantum’s potential to transform sectors such...
Quantum Threat Looms: Bitcoin Must Embrace Post‑Quantum Collaboration
Are bitcoiners underestimating the quantum computing threat? In this @Unchained_pod episode, @drakefjustin and @ChrisPeikert join me to unpack: 🤖 The quantum computing risk to crypto 🤫 How governments may be the dark horse in the quantum race 👀 Why Bitcoin and Ethereum may need...
Dr. Christian Weedbrook and Bill Fradin on Xanadu’s $3.1B Quantum SPAC Deal (CHAC)
Xanadu, the Canadian quantum‑computing startup, announced a $3.1 billion business combination with Crane Harbor Acquisition Corp., a special‑purpose acquisition company listed on NASDAQ. The deal, disclosed in November, positions Xanadu as one of the few quantum firms to go public via...
Quantum Software Alliance Launches Site to Accelerate Practical Computing
Quantum software is essential to make quantum technology work. The #QuantumSoftwareAlliance is a network of research institutions focused on making quantum computing practical through software, with an emphasis on co-design, algorithm discovery, verification, benchmarking, and interoperability. The web page is now...
Ethereum Targets Post‑quantum Cryptography Upgrade by 2029
“The plan right now is to upgrade every single piece of Ethereum cryptography to be post quantum secure by 2029.” — Justin Drake (@drakefjustin), Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation https://t.co/bbNeyUmOCj
Quantum Light Conversion Mapped with Unprecedented Precision Using New Technique
Researchers at the University of Bath introduced two‑tone tomography, a novel interferometric method that fully characterises quantum frequency converters. By probing devices with a bichromatic signal and analysing spectral interference, the technique reconstructs the complete complex spectral transfer function—including both...
Quantum Threat Undermines Zcash Soundness, Not Privacy
“Quantum computers will break the soundness of these privacy schemes like Zcash, but they will not break privacy.” — Justin Drake (@drakefjustin), Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation https://t.co/fCtfMcB0vh
Quantum Breakthroughs Expected by 2032—Start Building Now
“If indeed I’m right, that 2032 is the date (for quantum to get real), then today’s when we really need to get started.” — Justin Drake (@drakefjustin), Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation https://t.co/bbNeyUmOCj
Quantum AI Shortcut Could Speed up Language Models with Reduced Complexity
Researchers introduced Quantum Attention by Overlap Interference (QSA), a variational quantum implementation of self‑attention that encodes non‑linearity through quantum‑state overlap interference. By expressing the Rényi‑1/2 cross‑entropy loss as an observable, QSA eliminates the costly decoding step required in conventional quantum...
Quantum Computers Could Extract Private Keys From Public Keys
“With a cryptographically relevant quantum computer, you can take a public key and derive the private key from that.” — Justin Drake (@drakefjustin), Researcher at the Ethereum Foundation https://t.co/fCtfMcBykP
Local Stoquastic Hamiltonians Remain MA-Hard to Solve
Stoquastic Hamiltonians avoid the sign problem in Monte Carlo simulations, so they are often viewed as the easy corner of many-body physics. We show that this intuition fails. https://t.co/zo2Si0xw35 Even under strict physical structure, estimating the ground-state...
New Technique Unlocks Key to Simulating Complex Molecular Behaviour Accurately
Researchers introduced the ensemble ADAPT‑VQA, a purification‑based algorithm that determines ensemble N‑representability of p‑body reduced density matrices by embedding ensembles into pure states on an extended Hilbert space. The method iteratively applies unitary transformations to minimise the Hilbert‑Schmidt distance between...
NIST Awards Over $3M to Small Businesses Advancing AI, Biotech, Semiconductors, Quantum and More
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has awarded $3.19 million in Phase II SBIR grants to eight small businesses across seven states. The funding supports research in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, semiconductor, quantum and other advanced technologies, with each award ranging...
Quantum Communication Secured by Choosing Measurement Basis Offers Ultimate Privacy
Researchers have unveiled a one‑way quantum secure direct communication (QSDC) protocol that hides the secret in the choice of measurement basis—computational or Hadamard—rather than a pre‑shared key. Using finite ensembles of entangled EPR pairs and a public authenticated channel, the...
Quantum Compilation Speeds up 100x, Bringing Practical Quantum Computers Closer
Researchers introduced QASMTrans, a C++‑based quantum compilation framework that delivers over 100× faster transpilation than leading tools such as Qiskit, with speedups reported up to 171× on certain circuits. The system preserves comparable circuit fidelity—within 1% of Qiskit’s O3 level—while...
Quantum Entanglement’s ‘No Signalling’ Rule Bends, but Doesn’t Break
Researchers have built relaxed no‑signalling models that permit a quantifiable signalling budget, enabling non‑classicality tests even when experimental data deviates from perfect no‑signalling. By extending local hidden‑variable and local hidden‑state frameworks, they derived corrected Bell and steering inequalities that remain...
AI Collaborator Unlocks Quantum Chemistry for All Researchers
University of Toronto researchers unveiled El Agente Quntur, a hierarchical multi‑agent AI that acts as a research collaborator for quantum‑chemical simulations. The system reasons over ORCA 6.0 documentation and scientific literature, planning, executing and analysing calculations ranging from geometry optimisations to excited‑state studies....
Quantum Computation Simplified: New Method Cuts Complexity of Building Quantum Circuits
Researchers from Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Los Alamos National Laboratory and Alice & Bob have introduced a new compilation technique that builds any matchgate unitary using only matchgate gates, supplemented by a single T‑type phase gate. By proving that the matchgate‑Clifford group plus...
OQC Demonstrates Quantum Algorithm on Toshiko System, Boosting Defence Network Resilience
OQC and QinetiQ have demonstrated a quantum‑based solution that identifies critical vulnerabilities in Mobile Ad‑Hoc Networks used for military and emergency communications. By running QinetiQ’s Quantum Approximation Optimisation Algorithm on OQC’s Toshiko processor, the collaboration pinpointed nodes whose failure would...
Post-Quantum Encryption Bypasses Digital Certificates for Faster, More Secure 5G Networks
Researchers have introduced a post‑quantum identity‑based encryption framework that eliminates X.509 certificates for TLS in 5G core networks and Kubernetes environments. By deriving public keys from identity strings and employing lattice‑based primitives such as ML‑KEM and Module‑NTRU, the scheme offers...
Beyond Surface Code: Exploring Exotic Quantum Error‑Correction Zoo
I like to picture the space of error correction codes as a zoo with many exhibits. Many people are familiar with the surface code, it’s certainly the workhorse of our field. But there exist exotic codes that protect quantum information...
Dr. Malo Cadoret Joins Q-CTRL to Accelerate Development of GPS-Independent Navigation
Q‑CTRL announced the appointment of Dr. Malo Cadoret as Principal Scientist to lead its quantum sensing division. Cadoret, a leading expert in quantum gravimetry, brings experience deploying mobile quantum gravimeters on aircraft and sea vessels. His hire is expected to...