Quantum technologies are the latest emerging science to see rapid innovation through an ecosystem of public-private partnerships, where information flows out of research silos and plants seeds for commercial applications. A government partnership with the private sector doesn’t have to be a multimillion-dollar lab, though. For instance, I found one at an Embassy Suites hotel in South Bend, Indiana.
Professors from Notre Dame and Indiana University sat beside us at the spring Industry Advisory Board meeting of the Center for Quantum Technologies. Over lunch, they engaged me and other member experts in an animated discussion of their quantum research. The conversation was challenging — the very beginning of an idea, with my industry peers at the table to consider where one day we might take it.
The quantum field is like the internet in its early days, bursting with independent activity. CQT is one of the National Science Foundation Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers — groups that engage with top-tier researchers, direct their activity and apply their findings. Academia, government and industry are tightly bonded in public-private partnerships such as CQT, a four-campus National Science Foundation alliance with Amazon Web Services, Eli Lilly and Co. and Toyota among its committed members.
What Is a Public-Private Partnership/PPP?
A public-private partnership, also called a PPP, can be a collaborative forum for public and private institutions or a contract bringing private financing or expertise to a government project or program.
PPP Collaborations Speed the Pace of Change
Competition among nations for quantum technology has spurred the growth of the PPP ecosystem. Quantum science developments hold profound implications for security practices and international relations. Defense, intelligence and civilian contractors are engaging researchers in proof-of-concept projects that are bringing quantum innovations closer to commercial application. The U.S. government has pledged $3.7 billion to quantum computing projects, according to an April 2024 McKinsey report.
Federal investments support quantum trailblazers through regional partnerships. IBM, Microsoft and quantum companies such as Infleqtion and qBraid participate in the Bloch, a PPP quantum collaboration in line for a share of the $70 million in grants the U.S. Economic Development Administration will award this year. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker predicts that 30,000 jobs will emerge from the Bloch’s $650 million in public and private funding.
The consortium extends the research muscle of the federally run Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab, making the Midwest a cradle of quantum development. Four leading research universities are Bloch partners — Chicago, Illinois, Northwestern and Wisconsin — and partner companies are engaged in a wide range of quantum technologies, from quantum processors and algorithms to precise quantum sensors and secure quantum communications. The Bloch is eligible to apply for millions of dollars in federal funding to implement programs to bring their discoveries closer to commercialization.
At the daylong Notre Dame event, industry advisers did more than soak up dining-table talk. Professors from the CQT academic partners — Purdue, Indiana and Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis as well as Notre Dame — gave 17 research presentations. In a closed meeting, we gave feedback and recommended which projects should get CQT funding toward postdoctoral and graduate student salaries, travel and access to resources such as quantum computer or fabrication hardware.
The industry advisers talked among themselves about their own projects as well. Such close PPP collaboration exposes industry to academic innovations, but it also sets the stage for joint proof-of-concept projects in which the partners work out novel ideas. For instance, a quantum state can’t be intercepted without destroying it. The theory of a hyper-secure, no-eavesdropping quantum internet is to transmit entangled qubits, swapping photons in a series of relays. But hardware for these quantum repeaters is still being built. Such work was under discussion there.
How Partnerships Drive Success
Quantum has the excitement of the early internet, with revelations still to come. But the CQT’s competition for funding has echoes of the more focused Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency contests of two decades ago. The DARPA Grand Challenge awarded $1 million to the first academic team to complete a competition route with an autonomous vehicle. The collaborations were an early test of artificial intelligence, machine vision and sensor systems. The MacGyver-like vehicles that ran the DARPA Grand Challenge course provided a proof of concept toward today’s still nascent self-driving cars.
The partnership track has since become the federal model for applying early-stage technologies to solving end-user problems. In pharma, for instance, data-sharing programs from the Accelerating Medicines Partnership have sped drug discovery in the past decade for Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, lupus, Parkinson’s disease and rheumatoid arthritis.
Quantum partnerships not only extend research to private sector partners but also build vendor networks with relevant hardware, software or service capabilities. In quantum communications, developers must string together services such as Ciena’s coherent optics platform, Toshiba’s quantum key distribution solutions and Microsoft’s Azure Quantum cloud service. Business partners and contacts are instrumental in finding manufacturers and subcontractors with quantum expertise.
The quantum orbit now includes state PPP collaborations. In Illinois, Gov. Pritzker backs a $500 million plan, with $200 million in matching funds, to develop a cryogenic facility and quantum campus in the state. Neighboring Indiana carved out $4 million for quantum-ready capacity upgrades to the state’s communications infrastructure under the Indiana READI program.
Indiana’s program channels $500 million in public, private and philanthropic funding to a swath of economic development, education and resiliency projects. Local governments are encouraged to participate, setting priorities and bringing local expertise to support costly capital decisions. As quantum, AI and other technologies spread, state and local partners will play a more critical role, possibly providing tax incentives or abatements for the quantum computers, data centers and fiber optic cables of a quantum-enabled future.
Preparing a Quantum Workforce
In the next three to five years, quantum will be poised to make the kind of strides now seen in generative AI. The complementary technologies hold the promise of transforming finance, healthcare, manufacturing and other disciplines. By sponsoring innovation institutes and DARPA-style challenges, public-private partnerships can move quantum tech from discovery to commercialization. And if quantum computers indeed will be able to work out insoluble problems, graduates of Midwest academic collaboratives will be leading efforts to harness that computer power.
More traditional economic development partnerships, however, will be critical to a quantum future. Not everyone will need to be a physicist to work on emerging quantum applications. The quantum internet will need more data centers, and their resource-intensive networks will pose environmental challenges. Without open discussion and civic planning, the new technology may only widen current disparities.
For people to benefit from quantum science, they’ll need to appreciate where the science is leading, how to support change and where their community will access quantum services to leave no one behind. The positive spin on quantum will come outside the lab, as we build a quantum-ready workforce that understands science and is open to its possibilities.
