U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

52–451PDF WASHINGTON : 2024

ADVANCING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP 

IN QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, 

AND TECHNOLOGY 

OF THE

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

JUNE 7, 2023 

Serial No. 118–16 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. FRANK LUCAS, Oklahoma, Chairman 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

RANDY WEBER, Texas 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

JIM BAIRD, Indiana 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

MIKE GARCIA, California 

STEPHANIE BICE, Oklahoma 

JAY OBERNOLTE, California 

CHUCK FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

RICK CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York 

RYAN ZINKE, Montana 

SCOTT FRANKLIN, Florida 

DALE STRONG, Alabama 

MAX MILLER, Ohio 

RICH MCCORMICK, Georgia 

MIKE COLLINS, Georgia 

BRANDON WILLIAMS, New York 

TOM KEAN, New Jersey 

VACANCY 

ZOE LOFGREN, California, Ranking Member 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

HALEY STEVENS, Michigan 

JAMAAL BOWMAN, New York 

DEBORAH ROSS, North Carolina 

ERIC SORENSEN, Illinois 

ANDREA SALINAS, Oregon 

VALERIE FOUSHEE, North Carolina 

KEVIN MULLIN, California 

JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina 

EMILIA SYKES, Ohio 

MAXWELL FROST, Florida 

YADIRA CARAVEO, Colorado 

SUMMER LEE, Pennsylvania 

JENNIFER MCCLELLAN, Virginia 

TED LIEU, California 

SEAN CASTEN, Illinois, 

Vice Ranking Member 

PAUL TONKO, New York 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

June 7, 2023 

Page 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 2 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Frank Lucas, Chairman, Committee on Science, 

Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives .................................... 15 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 16 

Statement by Representative Zoe Lofgren, Ranking Member, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 18 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Charles Tahan, Director, National Quantum Coordination Office, OSTP 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 20 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 23 

The Honorable Paul Dabbar, Former Undersecretary for Science, Department 

of Energy 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 30 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 32 

Dr. Eleanor G. Rieffel, Chief Scientist, NASA Ames 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 48 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 50 

Dr. Celia Merzbacher, Executive Director, Quantum Economic Development 

Consortium 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 56 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 58 

Dr. Emily Edwards, Executive Director, IQUIST, University of Illinois 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 71 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 73 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 82 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Charles Tahan, Director, National Quantum Coordination Office, OSTP ... 124 

The Honorable Paul Dabbar, Former Undersecretary for Science, Department 

of Energy ............................................................................................................... 129 

Dr. Eleanor G. Rieffel, Chief Scientist, NASA Ames ............................................ 132 

Dr. Celia Merzbacher, Executive Director, Quantum Economic Development 

Consortium ........................................................................................................... 139 

Dr. Emily Edwards, Executive Director, IQUIST, University of Illinois ............ 145 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Letter submitted by Representative Frank Lucas, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives 

Paul Stimers, Executive Director, Quantum Industry Coalition .................. 156 

(1) 

ADVANCING AMERICAN LEADERSHIP 

IN QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 7, 2023 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 

2318, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank Lucas [Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 
2 
3 
4 
5 
6 
7 
8 
9 
10 
11 
12 
13 
14 
15 

Chairman LUCAS. The Committee will come to order. Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of the Committee at any time. 

And without objection, I would like to submit for the written 

record testimony provided by the Quantum Industry Coalition. Seeing no objection, so ordered. 

I recognize myself for 5 minutes for an opening statement. 

Good morning, and welcome to the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s first hearing on quantum science and technology this Congress. This hearing could not have come at a more 

critical time. Quantum technologies, much like artificial intelligence (AI) and high-powered computing, are changing our Nation’s economic, strategic, and scientific landscape. Congress is 

navigating difficult policy questions on the emerging technologies, 

and continued American leadership is essential if we want to capture their many benefits. 

I cannot overstate the importance of maintaining the U.S. competitive advantage in quantum capacities. The global leader in 

commercial and military quantum applications will have an economic and strategic advantage not seen since the United States 

ushered in the nuclear age in the 1940’s. Quantum sensors developed right here at home already enable many of the functions we 

take for granted, like keeping time and enabling global navigation 

and positioning. Further development, miniaturization, and hardening of these quantum systems will give Americans the advantage 

on the battlefield of tomorrow. 

Quantum computers have vast untapped potential for both good 

and evil, which is why it’s so important that we stay ahead of our 

adversaries on these technologies. On the one hand, quantum computers could help us solve fundamental problems in biology, chemistry, and physics. Quantum computers could model the effects of 

new drugs at the molecular level, saving time and money and delivering new healthcare treatments. They can help us understand 

and develop advanced materials that will revolutionize American 

manufacturing. They can help us develop cleaner energy technologies, ensuring affordable prices with lower emissions. They 

might even advance the development of artificial intelligence. 

Imagine the widespread benefits this could have for agriculture. 

Using the services enabled by quantum technology, we could increase global food security, lower the price of groceries for Americans, and increase production and profits for American farmers. 

In the wrong hands though, quantum computers could crack 

modern encryptions that are the bedrock of global financial systems, communications, and intelligence gathering. We cannot afford to have adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 

use quantum technologies against us. Using a quantum computer, 

the CCP could, in moments, crack current encryption codes, breaking down our digital defenses and exposing businesses and American citizens to gross violations of privacy. 

Recognizing the importance of staying ahead of the competition, 

this Committee passed the National Quantum Initiative Act in 

2018. Thanks to this legislation, the United States has maintained 

its position as the global leader in quantum research, development, 

and technology, but our adversaries are catching up. China and 
16 

Russia are investing heavily in the development of operational 

quantum systems. China in particular is investing more than $15 

billion in quantum research and development. 

If we want to maintain our leadership role in the quantum field, 

Congress needs to make smart strategic investments, but government cannot do this alone. A central tenet of the National Quantum Initiative Act is empowering U.S. researchers and businesses 

to innovate while the Federal Government plays a supporting role, 

where appropriate. The model has worked well, and U.S.-based 

businesses are leading the pack in quantum applications. As this 

Committee works to reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative 

for the next 5 years, we must build on this working model, while 

also developing new international partnerships with our allies. 

That is not to say that there’s not an active role for the government to play. The quantum industry, like other emerging technological industries, is in dire need of additional talent to fill out the 

workforce. The National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy (DOE) Quantum Centers, established under the 

National Quantum Initiative Act, have been hard at work to build 

out our educational curriculum, training programs, and industry 

partnerships over the last 5 years. These activities have not—could 

not take place without government support, and I look forward to 

hearing our witnesses speak about the progress that has been 

made. 

The government could also empower the quantum industry 

through complementary research and technology development. The 

National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) is already 

recognized internationally for its quantum innovations. Congress 

should enable NIST to further develop its expertise and leadership 

in solving the many complex science and engineering challenges 

that enable the quantum ecosystem to succeed. 

My staff and Ranking Member Lofgren’s staff are hard at work 

crafting bipartisan legislation to ensure we maintain our leadership position in quantum science and technology, meet the workforce needs of the quantum industry, and accelerate the commercialization of quantum systems. The dialog we have—will have in 

this hearing today will inform the development of that legislation, 

and I look forward to hearing the recommendations of our witnesses on how this Committee can improve quantum programs to 

carry out the National Quantum Initiative into the next 5 years. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Lucas follows:] 

Good morning, and welcome to the Science, Space, and Technology Committee’s 

first hearing on quantum science and technology this Congress. 

This hearing could not have come at a more critical time. Quantum technologies, 

much like artificial intelligence and high-powered computing, are changing our nation’s economic, strategic, and scientific landscape. 

Congress is navigating difficult policy questions on emerging technologies, and 

continued American leadership is essential if we want to capture their many benefits. 

I cannot overstate the importance of maintaining the U.S. competitive advantage 

in quantum capabilities. The global leader in commercial and military quantum applications will have an economic and strategic advantage not seen since the United 

States ushered in the nuclear era in the 1940s. 

Quantum sensors developed right here at home already enable many of the functions we take for granted—like keeping time and enabling global navigation and positioning. 
17 

Further development, miniaturization, and hardening of these quantum systems 

will give Americans the advantage on the battlefield of tomorrow. 

Quantum computers have vast, untapped potential for both good and evil, which 

is why it’s so important that we stay ahead of our adversaries on these technologies. 

On the one hand, quantum computers could help us solve fundamental problems 

in biology, chemistry, and physics. 

Quantum computers could model the effects of new drugs at the molecular level, 

saving time and money in delivering new healthcare treatments. 

They could help us understand and develop advanced materials that will revolutionize American manufacturing. 

They can help us develop cleaner energy technologies, ensuring affordable prices 

with lower emissions. 

They might even advance the development of Artificial Intelligence. 

Imagine the widespread benefits this could have for agriculture. Using the services enabled by quantum technology, we could increase global food security, lower 

the price of groceries for Americans, and increase production and profits for American farmers. 

In the wrong hands, though, quantum computers could crack modern encryptions 

that are the bedrock of global financial systems, communications, and intelligence 

gathering. 

We cannot afford to have adversaries like the Chinese Communist Party use 

quantum technologies against us. Using a quantum computer, the CCP could, in 

moments, crack current encryption codes, breaking down our digital defenses and 

exposing businesses and American citizens to gross violations of privacy. 

Recognizing the importance of staying ahead of the competition, this Committee 

passed the National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018. Thanks to this legislation, the 

United States has maintained its position as the global leader in quantum research, 

development, and technology. 

But our adversaries are catching up. China and Russia are investing heavily in 

the development of operational quantum systems. China, in particular, is investing 

more than $15 billion in quantum research and development. 

If we want to maintain our leadership role in the quantum field, Congress needs 

to make smart, strategic investments. But government cannot do it alone. 

A central tenant of the National Quantum Initiative Act is empowering U.S. researchers and businesses to innovate while the Federal Government plays a supporting role, where appropriate. The model has worked well, and U.S.-based businesses are leading the pack in quantum applications. 

As this Committee works to reauthorize the National Quantum Initiative for the 

next five years, we must build on this working model while also developing new, 

international partnerships with our allies. 

That is not to say there is not an active role for the government to play. The 

quantum industry, like other emerging technology industries, is in dire need of additional talent to fill out the workforce. 

The National Science Foundation and Department of Energy quantum centers established under the National Quantum Initiative Act have been hard at work to 

build out educational curriculum, training programs, and industry partnerships over 

the last five years. 

Chairman LUCAS. And with that, I now recognize the Ranking 

Member, the gentlewoman from California, for an opening statement. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Well, thank you, Chairman Lucas, for holding today’s hearing. And I’d also like to welcome our really quite distinguished panel of witnesses. 

You know, one of the joys of serving on the Science Committee 

is that we truly are the Committee of the future, and we’re doing 

so in a bipartisan manner. Today’s hearing is truly about the technology of tomorrow. As we know, in 2018, the Committee led the 

development in the bipartisan National Quantum Initiative Act and 

the whole-of-government research initiative on a topic that seems 

really ripped out of the science fiction books I used to read as a 

teen, quantum information science. 

By all accounts, the first 5 years of this initiative have been a 

big success. The initiative galvanized the U.S. Science Committee 
18 

around quantum technologies, and it’s made our country a world 

leader in many quantum applications. I was an original co-sponsor 

of the act in the 115th Congress, and I’m looking forward to 

partnering with the Chairman in considering this reauthorization. 

The first 5 years focused primarily on the fundamental science 

advances needed to make quantum systems work. While investments in fundamental research need to continue, they are essential 

over the next 5 years, we’re also, as the Chairman is mentioning, 

need to invest in human, physical—and physical infrastructure 

that’s going to allow us to move quantum technologies from the lab 

to the marketplace. 

In my own district in Silicon Valley, companies such as D-Wave 

and Rigetti Computing are already building hybrid quantum computers that can address novel computing challenges. Now we— 

these two companies are among many companies developing quantum technologies. The nascent U.S. quantum industry does face 

significant hurdles to continuing its growth and meeting its potential to hopefully secure U.S. leadership in quantum technologies. 

One of these challenges, of course, is preparing the quantumready workforce. We’ve not yet had a major focus on quantum education and workforce development. Although in the CHIPS and 

Science Act Congress updated the National Quantum Initiative Act 

to promote early introduction to quantum concepts and quantum 

science among middle school and high school students, really, it’s 

just a few universities that have created their own interdisciplinary 

quantum science and engineering degree programs. Significant 

hurdles remain to getting a ready workforce, and one important 

topic for this hearing is understanding those hurdles and exploring 

the role of the Federal science agencies in helping to address them. 

Another challenge, of course, is infrastructure. Enabling our universities, national labs, and startup companies to conduct quantum 

experiments and develop and demonstrate quantum technologies 

requires state-of-the-art research infrastructure, and this is, of 

course, a multilayered challenge. 

NIST is one of the key Federal agencies charged with conducting 

quantum research. It’s really in a crisis of failing infrastructure 

and unmet maintenance needs, and I hope that this Committee can 

address that in our authorizing work. The Department of Energy 

labs also face challenges. We’re asking our Federal scientists to 

conduct exquisitely sensitive experiments in woefully outdated 

labs. In addition, universities and small companies across the country will need access to specialized equipment that they can’t afford 

on their own. 

As we look forward into the future, there will be additional challenges that we can start preparing for today and additional challenges that we may not even imagine at this point. I look forward 

to the discussion today to learn how the reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act can help to address these challenges. 

And, Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to work with you, and I yield 

back. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Lofgren follows:] 

Thank you, Chairman Lucas, for holding today’s hearing. I would also like to welcome our distinguished panel of witnesses. 
19 

One of the joys of serving on the Science Committee is that we are the committee 

of the future. Today’s hearing is truly about the technology of tomorrow. In 2018, 

this Committee led the development of the bipartisan National Quantum Initiative 

Act, a whole-of-government research initiative on a topic that seems ripped out of 

the pages of a science fiction novel: quantum information science. 

By all accounts, the first five years of this initiative have been a resounding success. The initiative galvanized the U.S. science community around quantum technologies and has made our country the world leader in most quantum applications. 

I was an original cosponsor of the Act in the 115th Congress, and I am looking forward to partnering with the chairman in considering a reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act. 

The first five years of the National Quantum Initiative or NQI, focused primarily 

on the fundamental scientific advances needed to make quantum systems work. 

While investments in fundamental research will continue to be essential over the 

next five years, we must begin to invest more in the human and physical infrastructure that will enable us to move quantum technologies from lab to market. In Silicon Valley, not far from my own district, companies such as D-Wave and Rigetti 

Computing are already building hybrid quantum computers that can address novel 

computing challenges. 

While these two companies are among many companies developing quantum technologies, the nascent U.S. quantum industry faces significant hurdles to continuing 

its growth and meeting its potential to secure U.S. leadership in quantum technology. 

The first of these challenges is preparing a quantum-ready workforce. The NQI 

has not yet had a major focus on quantum education and workforce development. 

In the CHIPS and Science Act, Congress updated the National Quantum Initiative 

Act to promote early introduction to quantum concepts and quantum science among 

middle school and high school students. A few universities have created their own 

interdisciplinary quantum science and engineering degree programs. However, significant hurdles remain to enabling a quantum ready workforce at all levels from 

the skilled technical workforce to the doctoral level. One important topic for this 

hearing is understanding those hurdles and exploring the role of the Federal science 

agencies in addressing them. 

The next challenge is infrastructure. Enabling our universities, Federal labs, and 

start-up companies to conduct quantum experiments and develop and demonstrate 

quantum technologies requires state-of-the- art research infrastructure. This is a 

multi-layered challenge. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, one 

of the key Federal agencies charged with conducting quantum research, is in a crisis 

of failing infrastructure and unmet maintenance needs. The Department of Energy 

labs face similar challenges. We are asking our Federal scientists to conduct exquisitely sensitive experiments in woefully outdated labs. In addition, universities and 

small companies across the country will need access to specialized equipment that 

they cannot afford on their own. 

As we look further into the future, there will be additional challenges that we can 

start preparing for today. Mathematicians theorize that the day will come when 

someone builds a sufficiently powerful quantum computer to break modern 

encryption algorithms. I sure hope it is a U.S. lab or company that does so. The 

question for us today is what we need to do to make that hope a reality. 

I look forward to the discussion today to learn how a reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act can help to address these challenges. 

Thank you and I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. I want to thank the Ranking Member for all 

these thoughtful words. 

And with that, let me introduce our panel of witnesses before 

they begin their testimony. Our first witness is Dr. Charles Tahan. 

Dr. Tahan serves as the Director of the National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO) and Assistant Director of Quantum Information Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology 

Policy (OSTP). Dr. Tahan came to Quantum Coordination Office 

from the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) Laboratory for Physical Sciences. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of 

Wisconsin, Madison. Thank you. 

Our next witness is Under Secretary Paul Dabbar. Mr. Dabbar 

was the fourth Under Secretary for Science at the U.S. Department 
20 

of Energy serving from 2017 to 2021. Before entering government, 

Under Secretary Dabbar served as a nuclear submarine officer in 

the U.S. Navy. He’s now the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of his 

own quantum networking company, Bohr Quantum, and he also 

holds degrees in marine and nuclear engineering and business administration. Thank you. 

Next, we have Dr. Eleanor Rieffel. Dr. Rieffel is the Senior Researcher for the Advanced Computing and Data Analytics at 

NASA’s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s) Ames 

Research Center in Palo Alto, California. She is a published author 

on the subject of quantum computing and received the NASA Exceptional Engineering Achievement Medal in 2019. The doctor 

holds two degrees in the subjects Americans fear most, math from 

UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) and Harvard University. Thank you. Just an observation about the obvious thing in the 

world out there. 

Next is Dr. Celia Merzbacher. Dr. Merzbacher is the Executive 

Director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium 

(QEDC), a coalition of quantum stakeholders dedicated to the 

growth of a commercial quantum-based industry. Dr. Merzbacher 

has served in various research and government roles, including 

stints at the Naval Research Laboratory, OSTP, and Oak Ridge 

National Laboratory. She earned a degree of science in geology and 

earth sciences from Brown University and her Ph.D. in geochemistry from Penn State. 

Last but not least we have Dr. Emily Edwards. Dr. Edwards is 

the Director of the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her 

center is a leader in training scientists across a variety of fields to 

enter the quantum-ready workforce. Before moving to Illinois, Dr. 

Edwards was the Director of Communications and Outreach at the 

Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland. The doctor 

holds bachelor’s degrees in physics and chemistry from Appalachian State University and a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Maryland. 

Thank you all for being here today, and I want to begin by recognizing Dr. Tahan for 5 minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. CHARLES TAHAN, DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL QUANTUM COORDINATION OFFICE, OSTP 

Dr. TAHAN. Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member Lofgren, and esteemed Members of the Committee, I am honored to appear before 

you today to discuss the future of the National Quantum Initiative. 

My name is Charlie Tahan. I’m the Assistant Director for Quantum 

Information Science and the Director of the National Quantum Coordination Office at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP. I’m also a practicing quantum physicist 

with over two decades of experience in academia, industry, and 

government. 

My mandate at OSTP includes working with agencies to develop 

and maintain the National Strategy for Quantum Information 

Science, a strategy that has been consistently improved over the 

last few years. It is a privilege to lead the National Quantum Co-
21 

ordination Office, and I want to thank the Committee for establishing it under the NQI Act. 

The value of the NQCO lies in our team of government experts 

in quantum detailed to OSTP from NSF, DOE, NIST, DOD (Department of Defense), and the intelligence community (IC). Our duties extend to regular interactions with industry, academia, and national and Federal labs in the global quantum ecosystem, including 

our foreign counterparts. 

Our participation in workforce development and public outreach 

activities such as World Quantum Day and the National Q–12 Education Partnership underscore our commitment to building the 

community. One of the NQCO’s most important roles is to facilitate 

interactions between the agencies, members from over 20 Federal 

organizations actively participating in the working groups and 

events that we help organize. 

The impact of information technology (IT) on our society has 

been profound, and quantum information science represents a 

foundational shift in our understanding of IT. Quantum information applies the most surprising aspects of quantum mechanics, 

which are the rules that govern how really small things behave to 

how we process, store, and transfer information. Quantum science 

has already made disruptive impacts via technologies like GPS 

(Global Positioning System) and MRIs (magnetic resonance 

imagings). Next-generation quantum centers will create even more 

transformative systems for precision navigation and for biomedical 

applications. Future quantum computers will enable new science, 

as well as chemistry and materials discovery. Quantum networks 

may one day connect these new types of computers and sensors together. 

But to get to that future, numerous scientific and engineering 

challenges must still be overcome. Large-scale quantum computers 

are also expected to jeopardize existing secure communication protocols. This requires the United States to balance the economic and 

national security implications of quantum. National Security 

Memorandum 10 on quantum computing, signed by the President 

last year, addresses these concerns directly. 

Given this immense potential, U.S. leadership in quantum information science is crucial. The national strategy has three broad 

goals: getting the science right, enhancing U.S. competitiveness, 

and empowering our people. The first 5 years of the NQI Act succeeded in strengthening the American quantum ecosystem. It has 

solidified our all-of-nation response, recruited new researchers to 

the field, and helped spur significant industry investment. Federal 

funding for quantum has doubled since the NQI’s passage. 

Our success can be seen by those who have emulated the United 

States with many countries around the world launching national 

quantum initiatives of their own. It is critical that the United 

States reaffirms and strengthens its commitment to quantum information science by reauthorizing the National Quantum Initiative 

Act. By doing so, the United States will signal to the world that 

it will continue to lead in this critical yet emerging field. U.S. involvement is more important now than ever, as it is essential that 

we continue to work with trusted partners to get the development 
22 

and protection of this technology right, which includes the rapid deployment of quantum-resistant cryptography. 

Because of this importance, OSTP coordinated an interagency 

process, recommending policies to the Committee to enhance the 

NQI Act. Here are some of the most important points: 

First, reauthorize the NSF and DOE centers and remove the 

limit on the number of designated centers. 

Second, support long-lived NSF programs focused on training talents in quantum and understanding workforce demand. 

Third, strengthen the whole-of-government approach by expanding the core agencies. For example, a dedicated international fund 

is needed to support U.S. commitments in international cooperation. NASA, NIH (National Institutes of Health), and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) also have important roles to play and 

can do more, and we welcome further integration of the DOD in the 

IC. 

Fourth, we need to begin translating scientific discoveries made 

in the NQI to commercial utility and agency missions through engineering research and systems integration programs and public-private partnerships. The NSF TIP (Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships) Directorate, a NIST Center for Quantum Engineering, 

and the QUEST (Quantum for Energy Systems and Technologies) 

program at DOE are just a few examples of such opportunities. 

Finally, create and equip new laboratories across the United 

States so that we can remain competitive with the world. 

These recommendations complement those of the NQI Advisory 

Committee whose first report is now available and I’ve included in 

my written testimony. 

I will end by reinforcing the importance of people to our success. 

Training and recruiting talent both here and across the world are 

the most important actions we can take to strengthen U.S. leadership. 

Thank you again for this opportunity, and I welcome your 

thoughts and questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Tahan follows:] 
23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 
30 

Chairman LUCAS. Thank you. I now recognize Under Secretary 

Dabbar for 5 minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE PAUL DABBAR, 

FORMER UNDERSECRETARY FOR SCIENCE, 

DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY 

Mr. DABBAR. Chair Lucas, Ranking Member Lofgren, and Members of the Committee, I’m honored again to be before this Committee, my favorite authorizing Committee, but please don’t tell 

E&C (Energy and Commerce) that. I am honored to be here to discuss quantum technologies and this Committee’s leadership from 5 

years ago on triggering a technology revolution and how this next 

act can continue that momentum. 

Not long ago, the prospects of quantum moving from the science 

lab to applications seem farfetched. Barely 6 qubits could be fabricated on a chip. And quantum teleportation was an interesting 

science experiment at Berkeley. Your act 5 years ago directed significant investments that led to results. It built on the historical 

efforts of NSF, NIST, and DOD, provided additional supports for 

universities, a commercial consortium, and the five NQI centers 

and provided for coordination of national efforts. 

At DOE we stood up those research centers with over 70 participants from national labs, academia, and the private sector. This 

was the first time that DOE Discovery Program included the private sector. Major accomplishments included, at Oak Ridge, development of a quantum computing hub, extensive quantum networks 

tested at Caltech, Brookhaven, Fermilab and Argonne. IBM fabricated a quantum processing chip with a record 433 qubits on its 

path to a quantum supercomputer. Google developed a high-fidelity 

quantum processor and developed quantum simulations, including 

a wormhole teleportation protocol. And Berkeley lab researchers received the Nobel Prize last year in experimentally proving quantum teleportation for networking. 

But your accomplishments were far beyond the direct NQI programs. Your efforts were the seed round that triggered a massive 

set of investments from others. In academia, a wide set of university-started programs from the University of Chicago’s Molecular 

Engineering School to Caltech’s quantum networking efforts, just— 

the Columbia Quantum Initiative, Oklahoma State’s Lahiri’s group, 

and Santa Clara University’s engineering physics program. You 

triggered foundations to invest, notably, the Pritzker Foundation in 

Illinois. You triggered a vast set of private investments. Since the 

NQI was passed, over $6 billion have been invested by the private 

sector, about five times what you appropriated and directly authorized. On Wall Street that would be called leverage. 

My quantum networking business Bohr Quantum and many 

other companies benefited from this ecosystem, and not only have 

American companies grown, but quantum companies from overseas 

have moved to the United States, including in the Bay Area, following your leadership. 

As you consider the NQI reauthorization, here are a few 

thoughts on how to build on your successes. We need to bridge the 

gap between research quantum products and users. While still advancing the science, it’s imperative to look at first-generation appli-
31 

cations and deployment, including private company quantum computers and enhanced QUEST program and network systems. Stand 

up a program to design, procure, and deploy at the national lab’s 

first quantum-centric high-performance computers. And I would 

recommend deploying a first U.S. quantum satellite program. 

Here are some specific ideas for your consideration for the second 

NQI Act: Maintain core research programs at the various centers 

and adding funding to that. Authorize a new program for first 

steps of usable quantum computers, networking, and sensing. I 

would recommend authorizing a quantum-centric high-performance 

computing program. Authorize DOE to start a $200 million-peryear post-exascale high-performance computing program that 

would incorporate quantum into the architecture of the supercomputers. The NQI should build on the momentum of the announcement by IBM, UChicago, and the two DOE national labs to build 

100,000-qubit supercomputer that was announced a few weeks ago 

and included our great ally Japan in that. We should look at doing 

a joint DOE-NASA quantum satellite program. We should look at 

scaling up helium-3 production at Savannah River National Lab, 

create a new quantum foundry effort in instrumentation, and authorize allowing for allied nations to work together with us. 

This topic is important to national security. It is no coincidence 

that when Snowden defected to China, they immediately started 

ramping up quantum networks and their quantum computing program. This technology is critical around—about decryption, as the 

Chairman mentioned. And China, while behind us, is right on our 

heels. I recommend that you—we continue to move forward with 

the momentum that you created for America in this next act. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dabbar follows:] 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 
37 
38 
39 
40 
41 
42 
43 
44 
45 
46 
47 
48 

Chairman LUCAS. Thank you. And I now recognize Dr. Rieffel for 

5 minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. ELEANOR G. RIEFFEL, 

CHIEF SCIENTIST, NASA AMES 

Dr. RIEFFEL. Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member Lofgren, and 

distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to discuss NASA’s role in quantum research and development (R&D). I direct the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the QuAIL lab, at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon 

Valley. Our team focuses on quantum computing and collaborates 

with other NASA centers on quantum networking and quantum 

sensing. I joined NASA just over a decade ago to help build its 

quantum computing effort. 

Quantum Information sciences aims to harness the unique properties of quantum systems to process information in powerful ways. 

Applications range from computing to networking to measurement, 

timing, and sensing. Potential NASA applications include astronomical imaging, mapping of planetary electromagnetic and gravitational fields, and aeronautics communication and navigation. 

When the QuAIL team at NASA Ames was formed, it followed 

the model of the NASA advanced supercomputing program. It 

would not build quantum computing hardware, but rather would 

form close partnerships with groups that did. NASA’s high-end 

computing capability has long served as early testers for supercomputing hardware and software advances from industry and beyond. 

Algorithmic work is essential for the ultimate utility of quantum 

computing. Certain prototype—the current prototype quantum 

processors are small and non-robust, but progress is rapid, and as 

hardware advances, we will be able to explore quantum algorithms 

in ways that are impossible today. 

NASA, with its many computational challenges, is a rich source 

of use cases in aeronautics, Earth and space sciences, and space exploration. Quantum computing holds the promise of addressing 

challenges that are beyond what high-performance computing can 

do. 

Advances in quantum optics have potential for new networking 

technologies, both terrestrial and space-based, with potential applications in security data transfer and navigation. Quantum networking is key to link quantum computers and quantum information systems. NASA’s SCaN (Space Communications and Navigation) program investigates optical networking and has conducted 

multiple successful technology demonstration missions in the last 

decade with more planned. SCaN partners and other U.S. Government agencies in areas of advanced adaptive optics for ground stations, space qualifiable quantum sources, detectors, and memory, 

as well as to develop quantum use cases. Mission concepts from 

these joint activities include a space-based quantum testbed. 

Quantum sensing uses quantum properties of matter and light to 

achieve unprecedented measurement sensitivity that outperforms 

classical counterparts. Quantum sensors can impact technologies 

important for a range of NASA missions such as timing, remote 

sensing, metrology, ranging, and imaging. For example, improving 

gravitational mapping would enable scientists to better understand 
49 

changes in ice, oceans, and land water on Earth. The gravity recovery and climate experiments have been mapping Earth’s gravitational fields. NASA is funding efforts toward a future quantum 

gravity gradiometer or QGG that provides 10 times better resolution. Quantum sensing technologies such as atomic clocks and 

atomic inertial measurements provide navigation and timing in 

space and in areas in which GPS is unreliable or unavailable. 

Quantum sensing technologies can revolutionize NASA’s mission to 

unlock the secrets of the universe, provide insights into dark matter, and connections between quantum mechanics and gravity. 

NASA’s Cold Atom Laboratory has been operating continuously on 

the International Space Station since 2018 and serves as a pathfinder for future space technologies. 

NASA and the QuAIL team have many partnerships with industry, other government organizations, academic institutions, and 

international entities. NASA has been at the forefront of many 

technologies. NASA contributed to demonstrating the potential of 

parallel computing with the first massively parallel computer, the 

ILLIAC IV, coming to NASA Ames in 1972. We are excited to play 

a similar role in quantum information sciences. 

Thank you again for allowing me to share my expertise in this 

area with you and for your continued support of NASA research. 

I would be pleased to respond to questions from Members of the 

Committee. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Rieffel follows:] 
50 
51 
52 
53 
54 
55 
56 

Chairman LUCAS. Thank you very much. 

I now recognize Dr. Merzbacher for 5 minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. CELIA MERZBACHER, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

QUANTUM ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CONSORTIUM 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Thank you, Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member 

Lofgren, and Members of the Committee. It’s a great honor to have 

the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing. I’m Celia 

Merzbacher. I’m Executive Director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium, or QEDC, which is managed by SRI International. 

QEDC is the consortium of stakeholders that was called for by 

the NQI Act of 2018 We get what I think of as startup funding 

from NIST, and we get some funding from the Air Force Research 

Lab (AFRL) as well. But increasingly, we are supported by our 

growing members. We have some 230 members today. About 170 

of those are corporate, and about 3/4 of those companies are small 

or startups. 

More than 50 government agencies have also participated in 

QEDC activities, so we’re really building a broad, trusted community of quantum ecosystem members. QEDC’s mission is to enable 

and grow the quantum industry and the associated supply chain. 

Sounds easy, but it’s not. We’re exploring for use cases of quantum. 

That’s the most frequent question. And in order to realize these use 

cases and the potential, we’re looking for gaps that need to be 

filled, gaps in technology, critical technologies, like lasers and cryogenics and special electronics, gaps in standards and benchmarks 

for measuring progress, gaps in the workforce, and we’re providing 

input on policies like export controls. 

The NQI was launched with a science-first strategy, which made 

a lot of sense at the time. We needed multidisciplinary research. 

We needed teams of researchers from physics and materials and 

computer science and engineering to come together. We needed to 

start creating the pipeline of talent. You’ll hear more of that from 

Dr. Edwards. And we did a great job of doing that through the investments under NQI by NSF and DOE in particular. We’ve had 

a great start, and those efforts need to be sustained. 

But other nations are investing as well, as we’ve heard. Just recently, the U.K., Canada, Australia, Japan, India, Germany—I 

could go on—have all released or renewed their national strategies, 

and they’re all funding the science, but they’re also focusing more 

on the application and commercialization. China is investing a lot. 

Some reports say $15 billion. They’re hard numbers to verify, but 

the number of high-quality, highly cited research publications and 

patent applications indicate that China’s research and industry in 

quantum is growing as well. 

The private sector is making big bets, too. I think most of you, 

if not everyone, has heard about some of the large tech companies’ 

activities. They’re developing products with their own resources 

and making big investments. There’s a growing number of smaller, 

pure-play quantum companies, and I’ll remind you, there are no big 

quantum companies today. These small companies have private in-
57 

vestments. Some of them are getting some government funding as 

well. But the venture funding seems to be slowing according to a 

McKinsey report last year, and so it’s really important at this time 

for government to take measures to de-risk the technology and to 

bridge to the quantum economy of the future. 

I noted the title of this hearing was ‘‘Ensuring American Leadership in Quantum Technology.’’ Technology is the application of 

science, and so I’ll leave you with some suggestions for how NQI 

could be improved in light of the economic potential and the accelerating global competition. First of all, expand R&D to address 

gaps on the pathway to the quantum economy. For example, we 

could try some new programs that really fund industry and academia to work together, focusing on small businesses. This can be 

done in the NSF TIP Directorate. TIP stands for Technology, Innovation, and Partnership. Sounds like a good fit. 

Fund QUEST. Thank you to this Committee for authorizing 

QUEST. It’s becoming urgent to fund the program, which is to provide access to researchers broadly from industry, academia, government labs to quantum computing resources. Other countries are 

standing up similar programs. We need to fund this one. 

Provide for upskilling and reskilling of the existing workforce. 

We need to build the pipeline, and we’re doing a great job of starting that, but we need people today, and so we need to fund the 

workers. And I want to just mention in my closing to take full advantage of NIST. NIST has gotten four Nobel Prizes in quantum 

technology. They do standards, metrology, advanced manufacturing. They run the CHIPS R&D program, so NIST should be a 

bigger part the NQI. 

And I’ll finally end by cautioning about being careful when it 

comes to using export controls to control this technology. It’s early. 

Any controls should be done multilaterally or we won’t achieve our 

goals and risk hampering U.S. business. 

Thank you, and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Merzbacher follows:] 
58 
59 
60 
61 
62 
63 
64 
65 
66 
67 
68 
69 
70 
71 

Chairman LUCAS. Thank you. And I now recognize Dr. Edwards 

for 5 minutes to present her testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. EMILY EDWARDS, 

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, IQUIST, UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 

Dr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Chairman Lucas, Ranking Member 

Lofgren, and distinguished Committee Members for the opportunity to testify today before this panel. I’m Dr. Edwards and I colead the National Q–12 Education Partnership through a grant 

from the National Science Foundation. This consortium was spearheaded by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy 

and NSF. I also co-lead education and workforce programs for one 

of the NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes, Hybrid Quantum 

Architectures and Networks, and that’s at the University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, and University of Chicago. 

We’ve heard a lot about the importance of quantum to our Nation, and we’ve heard a lot about things we must do in order to 

strengthen our leadership, including reauthorizing the NQI and 

continuing Federal investments. It’s really amazing what we can do 

today with quantum, and I’m just so excited to talk about it because it’s one of my favorite subjects. 

For success in the long term, we need to invest in programs that 

significantly expand the participation of teachers and educational 

institutions across the country, and I really appreciated the opening remarks by the Chairman and by Ranking Member Lofgren. 

This approach recognizes that scaling the quantum workforce relies 

on empowering educators as mentors, role models, and Ambassadors. Moreover, the public of all ages should have a front row 

seat to the development of quantum information science in places 

like museums and libraries so that they can be prepared for a future that is influenced and underpinned by emerging quantum research and technology. 

The Q–12 has been convening stakeholders around the development of a quantum workforce that draws on diverse strengths and 

backgrounds of people across the country, and we’ve had a lot of 

meetings. And we see that there is wide agreement that students 

need exposure to quantum information science early to ensure continued U.S. leadership in this fast-evolving field. This is reflected 

in the CHIPS and Science Act, which calls on NSF to increase the 

integration of quantum into STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curricula at all levels, establishes a quantum education pilot program, and requires a workforce assessment 

study. And I want to thank Congress, and in particular this Committee, for including these provisions in the legislation last year. 

Currently, there are a lot of early stage programs, and many are 

connected to Q–12 that are increasing quantum readiness 

through—by expanding access to the field. And the National Quantum Initiative Act reauthorization is an opportunity to double down 

on this. Currently, we are missing resources for K–12 teachers. At 

higher levels—and Dr. Tahan mentioned this—educators broadly 

need cutting-edge labs to teach the next generation and provide 

upskilling for the current workforce. Essentially, we need more 

education and training opportunities for students, which are two 

different facets of workforce development, and they need to be 
72 

readily available no matter where you live in this country and no 

matter your background. And this is important for addressing the 

persistent lack of diversity across quantum-related fields as this 

contributes to severe shortages and limits our competitiveness as 

a nation. 

There are a lot of programs that are working to remove barriers 

to this field, but it’s going to take time. You heard about some— 

the mention of World Quantum Day. These and other educational 

programs under the National Quantum Initiative Act are helping 

to dispel the notion that quantum concepts are only accessible to 

the very few. Rather, quantum can provide inspiration for young 

learners and teachers alike and empower them to understand the— 

a host of emerging technologies that are so vital to our Nation. 

In this context, I’ll highlight two elements that are possible opportunities as you look to reauthorize this act. First, I urge the 

Committee to consider authorizing at least one national center for 

quantum education and workforce that will accelerate the readiness of educators and serve as a resource for existing programs to 

scale their local impacts—local impact in communities across the 

country. A center scale investment will concretely link the different 

parts of the educational pipeline and the different sectors and include the public. A new center could amplify and connect the initial 

workforce programs that have been developed such as those supported across the many agencies. And it would—could provide an 

avenue for the much-needed comprehensive regular workforce studies. 

Second, there’s a critical need for investments and public-private 

partnerships to build modern facilities, and we heard a little bit 

about this. Expanding quantum educational programs will help 

American workers have depth and agility over their careers and 

allow more people to prepare what comes next, quantum, quantumadjacent, or whatever else is down the road. 

And I want to just take a moment. I know I’m at my moment— 

at time, but I want to take a moment and say that, you know, I 

was reflecting yesterday on the National Quantum Initiative Act, 

and I looked back 20 years, which predates it, and it’s around this 

time of year that I spent a summer at NIST as a second-year grad 

student doing quantum physics research. It was my second time at 

NIST because I also spent a summer there as an undergrad coming 

from a small college. These experiences and the teachers who guided me have been integral to my path into quantum and my career 

today, and I hope this reauthorization expands such pathways for 

more students and more educators across our country. 

Thank you for your time, and I’m happy to take questions. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Edwards follows:] 
73 
74 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 
82 

Chairman LUCAS. Absolutely. And I want to thank the witnesses 

for your truly outstanding testimony. 

The Chair recognizes himself for 5 minutes. 

Dr. Tahan, the National Quantum Initiative focused on advancing fundamental quantum research across several agencies. Fundamental research is generally open and available for public consumption, even in areas with advanced technological potential. Unfortunately, we know how China’s happy to let the U.S. advanced 

fundamental research while it overinvests in the development of 

leading-edge applications after the fact. In the next 5 years of the 

National Quantum Initiative, how can we safeguard our research 

investments while maintaining our core scientific values? That’s a 

big question, but it is important. 

Dr. TAHAN. Thank you, Chairman, for the question. It is important. It’s a question that goes beyond quantum, the question of research security in a new world. I will say that this is something 

we take very seriously in the White House, in the Subcommittees 

that oversee quantum, in OSTP. One of the first things I did when 

I became Director was launch a fast track action committee on the 

role of international talent and research security and quantum information science. That report is available. We can, you know, 

make it available to your staff and follow up on it. 

Some of the recommendations that were made in that policy document—and these came from all the agencies—include having the 

agencies write technology protection plans, even fundamental R&D 

agencies like NSF. Those ultimately became directives in National 

Security Memorandum 10. It is something we follow on every year 

to help coordinate and share best practices across agencies from 

the DOD to the IC to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) to 

the NSF and DOE. We have a subcommittee, the Economic and Security Implications of Quantum Science Subcommittee, that’s completely dedicated to that, sharing best practices among the people 

who are actually running the programs. 

There’s no perfect way to manage risk, and, you know, first and 

foremost, our goal has to be to move—continue to move fast, empower our scientists and entrepreneurs, keep the open scientific 

community. This is a unanimous view from the agencies. We need 

to keep our open scientific engine of discovery going, but we need 

to do it in a smart way in this new world, and that comes down 

to really knowing what’s going on across the world and in our country, what the risks are in making good decisions. 

Chairman LUCAS. Dr. Edwards, each of our witnesses touched on 

the need for more quantum workforce development investments. 

You run an Education Workforce Center now, and you recommend 

Congress authorized the creation of a national center for quantum 

education workforce in your testimony. What would be your vision 

for such a center, and how do you see it meeting the needs of a 

diverse group of quantum stakeholders? I’ll give you another bigpicture question, too. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Let’s see. I was trying to figure out which indicated talk. Now, that’s a really, really great question. So for clarification, so the Q–12 partnership is a consortium, a voluntary consortium, and so currently, we’re setting up scaffolding. And over 

the last couple of years, it’s become clear that what is needed is 
83 

to build on this scaffolding to have a national center that can provide a resource. The role of such a center in this case is to draw 

together the existing workforce efforts and leverage them. So basically, the centers are doing awesome at the science, and the—and 

they’re really articulating the need for a workforce, but their original scope was not at the K–12 and undergraduate levels. And given 

that their original scope was not the—there is not necessarily resources to scale the impact of the nascent programs they are doing. 

And so I think a national center serves a—as a resource to scale 

and to also build into communities that are not being reached by 

the current National Quantum Initiative investments. 

Chairman LUCAS. Teeing off of that, using the phrase national 

center, should Congress create more than just one workforce center 

under a single agency, or should we promote multiple centers? 

Dr. EDWARDS. So this is a great question. So I think—another 

great question. So I think there are two approaches. The—what we 

need to do is—the goal when we design a center or design a resource is to remove barriers, and so I would say it would be ideal 

to have a center that is co-funded by multiple agencies because this 

will serve to remove the barriers that exist between the different 

investments across multiple agencies. We really want participation 

and to leverage efforts that are at the whole-of-government. In the 

absence of that, if it makes sense policy-wise, then I would say you 

would need multiple centers if you’re not able to have one that kind 

of pulls in the whole of government. 

Chairman LUCAS. My time has expired. I now recognize the 

Ranking Member, Ms. Lofgren, for 5 minutes. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for your really fascinating and wonderful testimony. 

One of the questions I—and most of you have mentioned NASA, 

and it’s great to see someone from NASA Ames. Thank you so 

much for traveling here to be with us. Is there anybody who doesn’t 

think that NASA should be added as a member of NQI? Should we 

add it? Everybody’s saying OK. So I think that’s something I’d like 

to explore with the majority. 

I’d like to follow up, Dr. Merzbacher, with the testimony you had 

about the gap between science and application and how—you know, 

kind of the valley of death if you’re in Silicon Valley. Could you be 

more detailed about what we might do to enhance the delivery 

from the lab to the commercial market? What are some of the 

things that we could do to enhance that effort? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Yes, this is not a quantum-specific problem—— 

Ms. LOFGREN. Correct. 

Dr. MERZBACHER [continuing]. Of course, but I view quantum as 

sort of a poster child or a pilot project—you know, we can focus on 

this. It’s the emerging technology today, and we can get it right. 

And so some of the approaches that could be taken to move some 

of the research that’s got practical application into the marketplace 

is to better connect the industry and academic researchers. And I 

run into this problem of capacity at some of the small companies 

to even do longer-term research, so we’ve got to somehow better 

connect the two, and that’s where perhaps some programs at places 

like NSF TIP could help. 
84 

We also know that there’s going to be manufacturing and scaling-up challenges. Right now, even at the companies, if you go and 

visit them, it looks like a research lab. It’s a big, complicated system that takes a lot of people to keep it running, and we need to 

be integrating these things and scaling them up and making them 

more reliable. And so there’s manufacturing challenges and 

manufacturability challenges. And programs like the Advanced 

Manufacturing Program that NIST runs and that’s supported by 

other agencies as well is an opportunity. We could create an Advanced Manufacturing Institute. 

I’ll remind you all that under the CHIPS and Science Act, DOD 

is creating some hubs for prototyping, and they have said they 

want to make one of those focused on quantum. We’re very excited 

to see what the outcome of that competition is. So we’ll have some 

prototyping capability. If we can get some manufacturing capability 

to go along with the research piece, I think we have the whole sort 

of innovation chain. 

Ms. LOFGREN. How much do we allow the private sector in to utilize facilities that is—are funded by the Federal—— 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Often, they’re welcome. I’m on the board or advisory committees for some of those user facilities. When you look 

at the numbers, there are not as many from industry, and that’s 

often because maybe they don’t know about it. There may be IP (intellectual property) issues. That always comes up, but I don’t think 

that’s unnecessarily standing in the way. I think it’s getting 

more—making it easier, and sometimes there’s really just a capacity problem. And so when I look around and say where is the capacity for doing some of that early stage work, it’s in the government labs and universities, so we need to connect the people in 

both sectors. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Dr. Edwards, let me ask you about the workforce 

issue. Obviously—you know, when I first was considering this, I 

thought, well, why would we do K–12 because, you know, a senior 

in high school is not going to be prepared to go into quantum physics. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, 

actually, that is helpful because quantum seems at odds with the 

world as we see it. And, you know, when I first read Schrodinger’s 

cat, I’m going, this is so weird, and yet—and so it would be helpful 

for young people to actually get—wrap their heads around that so 

that they could move on at a later date. 

We can’t be in every classroom, and, you know, not every teacher 

wants to do this, but have we thought about creating a model curricula that would be available to schools or teachers who wanted 

to do this if they could just download it and print it as a way to 

getting this across the Nation? 

Dr. EDWARDS. Yes, thank you for that question. Yes, so the 

through the Q–12 and the grant Q2Work, we’ve been able to develop an initial framework that’s a precursor to curriculum, to infuse quantum into the STEM subjects at the high school level and 

also at the middle school level. And this is an approach led by 

teachers, and I think that it’s a way that recognizes the diversity 

of education approaches across the country. 

The next step is indeed to develop a model curriculum, and this 

does actually—this is part of why we need a center because it’s— 
85 

such a center would develop the appropriate curriculum so that 

teachers and school districts and then even primarily undergraduate institutions could flexibly adapt it to the needs of their 

classroom because, after all, the teachers, the educators, the communities, and the families, they know how to best communicate 

this—these complexities to their young people. 

Ms. LOFGREN. Thank you. I see my time has expired. I yield 

back, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LUCAS. Thank you. The Chair recognizes gentleman 

from Florida for 5 minutes, Mr. Posey. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thank the 

staff for putting together such a great and informative panel. This 

has really been an interesting hearing. 

What additional safeguards does the National Quantum Initiative need to put in place to prevent countries of concern like China 

from stealing our research? You know, Dr. Tahan touched on it, 

and I’d kind of like to get the opinions of the other witnesses. Left 

to right would be fine. 

Mr. DABBAR. Congressman, so one of the things that we did at 

DOE—around all technologies, but quantum was a part of it—was 

develop something called a technology risk matrix, which was actually to list technology by technology of what’s OK to work with on 

an open science basis and what is—although it may not be classified yet, that it should be restricted on engagement with countries 

that are adversaries. I’d recommend that—while DOE has that, I 

would recommend that other agencies also look at that screening 

process also. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. 

Dr. RIEFFEL. I’m a technical person—oh, I turned it off. Oh, OK. 

I’m a technical person, so I just want to say that I’m aware of 

NASA’s strong export controls, and we vet foreign nationals coming 

in to NASA. We look at documents going out of NASA, et cetera. 

And for a stronger answer, I’ll defer to other experts at NASA and 

at other agencies. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. So I’m here representing the industry side, of 

course, and I’ve come up with a term I call business security. And 

my members need to understand that they are making decisions 

every day that take them along the path that leads to a position 

in the future that may or may not be business-secure. They’re accepting investors. They need to understand who those people are. 

They need to be making really smart decisions. And to help equip 

the members of QEDC, I have a very good relationship actually 

with U.S. law enforcement agencies, and they come in and talk to 

these companies, especially the small ones. They don’t have someone whose full-time job is doing export control. So they need to 

have access to resources, and we’re really fortunate to have that relationship that we can use to help them get access to useful information that they can use now to be business-secure in the future. 

Mr. POSEY. Have you noticed any attempts to capture any of our 

resources and knowledge? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. I assume it’s happening. I feel like a Q is a big 

target, and I know that there are occasions when companies have 

talked to some of our friends in government. I’m not in the middle 

of that, so I’m not aware of all of it, but I think the relationship 
86 

has been very useful. And the government people remind us, once 

the secrets are out, it’s too late. We need to be catching those problems before they lead to breaches and leaks. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. Doctor? 

Dr. EDWARDS. Thanks. So I think mine’s maybe just a little bit 

different to complement what’s already been said. I think, you 

know, at a university—so I’ll wear my IQUIST hat for a minute as 

Executive Director of a quantum center there at Illinois. Academia 

has in place export controls to follow—you know, to follow the laws 

that are out there, but I think an open dialog on how these are implemented and how these—what is export-controlled and what is 

not that is continuous because the technology is advancing so fast, 

and the research and the labs at the universities changes really 

fast. 

And we also have significant graduate programs that serve both 

domestic and international students. And we want—and that ensure—that is creating a very lively and robust enterprise in the 

United States, and so we want to keep that in place. So I think the 

key for—at the university level is to ensure that there’s open communications as these export controls are developed, that recognize 

the role of academia and the role of industry and the role of government, how we can work together to make sure that as they 

come out of the labs, they are safeguarded. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. Doctor, any further thoughts? I mean, 

you can go to any trade show in any industry in this country and 

look at the new products that come online, and a week later, 

they’re duplicated from China—— 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes—— 

Mr. POSEY [continuing]. Almost any industry in this country. 

Dr. TAHAN. I’ll make two quick comments to add to my previous 

ones. One, I think it comes down to making good decisions at the 

beginning, like Paul said, that if it’s fundamental research, let it 

be fundamental research. If it’s technology development, let’s—how 

are we going to protect it over the long run? 

The second thing is for emerging technologies like quantum, we 

need to get in early, so bringing the FBI in, our recommendation 

is for bringing DHS in to help the companies secure their cyber 

networks. You know, we need to be proactive and doing that early. 

Waiting till CFIUS (Committee on Foreign Investment in the 

United States) and other things, that’s way too late. We need to be 

very proactive with emerging technologies and get people educated, 

help them with their cybersecurity, and then, you know, eventually 

have guidelines for physical security and so on. But it’s really an 

early game here, and that’s what we’ve been working on. 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you. Thank you all. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentlelady from Michigan, Ms. Stevens, for 5 

minutes. 

Ms. STEVENS. Well, thank you to everyone who has shown up for 

quantum today. This is really remarkable to see the Science Committee packed on such a critical and global-shaping topic that we 

are eager to see the United States lead on. 

Recently—I represent southeastern Michigan, a community, a 

county called Oakland County, and we have Oakland University in 
87 

my district. And recently, Oakland University and their band of researchers, alongside Argonne National Laboratory, discovered a 

breakthrough to help lay the foundation for future advancements 

in quantum computing. These scientists uncovered opportunities 

for manipulating quantum information by coupling magnetic behavior to a superconducting circuit, thus potentially creating a sort 

of quantum disk drive with mindboggling amounts of storage. 

We’re really excited about this. And this research, as many of you 

have articulated in this phenomenal panel of witnesses, is happening in universities and think tanks all over the world. 

And one of the major barriers to research development and education in quantum information science is the relative lack of shared 

research infrastructure and instrumentation. The National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee released a report last Friday, 

just last Friday—and we’re glad to have these guys on speed dial— 

calling for Congress to invest in infrastructure for quantum in the 

reauthorization of the Quantum Act. 

So Dr. Tahan, can you talk about the scientific community’s 

needs for quantum-related research infrastructure and what Congress should be doing to address these challenges in the reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act? 

Dr. TAHAN. Absolutely, I’d love to. I think the important thing to 

keep in mind here is that if we want to lead the world, we need 

the people to do it, and so we can’t rely anymore on the top 25 universities generating talent. We need to expand the capacity of the 

United States to generate talent wherever it is. And really what— 

to make that happen, we need to do a few things. We need to educate—— 

Ms. STEVENS. Expand talent and keep it here. 

Dr. TAHAN. And keep it here, right—— 

Ms. STEVENS. Yes. 

Dr. TAHAN [continuing]. And wherever they may be. You know, 

at the end of the day, that’s what I’m passionate about and we’re 

all passionate about. That’s what we need to do. To do that, we 

need to educate people. This is a great opportunity. There are great 

careers here for our young people. We need to incorporate much 

more universities, community colleges, other places of learning and 

training into the leader—leading universities, R1 schools, 

through—and that means investing in infrastructure, equipment, 

even small labs so people can be trained up. We need to get, you 

know, quantum computing testbeds that students can learn in a 

thousand schools, not 20 schools. 

Ms. STEVENS. And you see a return on such an investment, 

right? I mean—— 

Dr. TAHAN. This is—I think there’s a great—and I like—this is 

what I always say. Quantum is more than quantum physics. If you 

think about what it takes to build a quantum computer or a quantum sensor or a quantum network, what are the skills you need? 

How to design a circuit, how to do microwave and RF (remote frequency) engineering, how to do programming. Like those skills in 

any industry of the future are going to be valuable—— 

Ms. STEVENS. Well, and Dr. Rieffel’s career sort of represents 

that in many respects, artificial intelligence to quantum now at 

NASA, and so, you know, we’ll find the bookend to spend, you 
88 

know, a couple of days with you and your career and your career 

trajectory. 

But I just want to get in for the record here because we have 

these manufacturing institutes, Manufacturing USA, and there is 

one in Rochester, New York, not in Michigan’s 11th District, but 

in Rochester, New York, called AIM Photonics. And I’m just curious—and I see Dr. Merzbacher nodding and Dr. Edwards. Are any 

of you working with AIM? Can you tell us about that consortia experience particularly on talent, R&D, and some of these broader 

challenges that we’re talking about here? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Thank you. Yes. We actually put together a 

team with QEDC members and others on a proposal to the DOD 

prototyping call for proposals, and AIM is one of the partners because they have capabilities. The idea of being able to make 

things—and as I think Charlie Tahan said or someone else, quantum is really about light and matter interacting, and AIM 

Photonics is about managing light, you know, making these compact systems and these photonic integrated circuits that they make 

are critical to future quantum systems. So AIM is a great part of 

the ecosystem—— 

Ms. STEVENS. You know, I’m wondering if they’re going to 

rebrand and start calling themselves the quantum lab. But certainly the photonics component of it is deeply important. And we’ll 

ask for the record—because, Dr. Edwards, we want to continue to 

get you in here as well—about the need for the technology dominance for the United States, the strategic investment, what my colleague on the other side of the aisle was talking about with regard 

to export controls and how some of your enterprises, in addition to 

a Federal public-private partnership that we have with Manufacturing USA, is helping us to achieve that goal. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes gentleman from Texas, Mr. Babin, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. BABIN. Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking 

Member Lofgren. I really appreciate all of you witnesses being 

here. It is a fascinating hearing, and we thank you. 

Dr. Dabbar, I’m glad that you mentioned in your testimony the 

impact that quantum has on our national security, specifically 

when it comes to certain defense capabilities that we have or want. 

Can you please elaborate on our network systems and how we can 

strengthen these systems to prevent vulnerabilities and damage 

from our adversaries? And then also, can you share where China 

is in this same technology? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So I’ll start with China. So 

China is—especially in the networking topic as you asked about, 

has accelerated their efforts in some respects farther than us. As 

I mentioned, after Snowden left and defected, he laid out the—how 

efficacious NSA is. And, amazingly, they massively built out a 

quantum network from Shanghai to Beijing, which is not close. 

They are not close to each other. They also launched a quantum 

satellite 6 years ago, OK, and so when I mentioned about how networking and satellites and security and codes, they started doing 

that 6 years ago. And as I look at NASA and other people have 

been pitching internally at NASA and elsewhere for us to go do 
89 

that, and that hasn’t happened yet. So I think leadership from this 

Committee for us to catch up on some of those areas. 

On the positive side, when it comes to entanglement and on the 

high end of distribution of quantum data and networks, the United 

States is by far the leader in, and so the ability for us to take the 

CHIPS Act and some of the infrastructure built out authorized in 

that and for whatever you feel is appropriate to authorize in the 

NQI to accelerate that further, the United States is ready to deploy 

the highest-end quantum networks that will be helpful for quantum computing networking, as well as security. 

Mr. BABIN. Absolutely. Can you please share why we’re behind 

China in quantum satellite efforts? And you alluded to that right 

then but—and what can we do going forward? You mentioned leadership, especially from this Committee. Because I don’t believe that 

we can afford to continue to delay making moves to catch up, especially in encryption and some of these fields with quantum. If you 

can elaborate a little further. 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So I think America is ready at 

your direction and your authorization between the photonics works 

at NIST, at DOD, and at NASA to actually design a quantum satellite, probably in conjunction with some of the NASA labs and 

DOE labs and provide miniaturization of the photonics, get it on 

chip, and be able to get it down into a package that can go up into 

a satellite. I think the interaction of that with the terrestrial networks that should be bid out under the CHIPS Act, so the likelihood of New York winning a terrestrial network, a land-based local 

network, Chicago also winning one, probably one in California and 

probably one in Oak Ridge in east Tennessee all likely winners, 

and taking downlink stations with the satellite and start networking across the country is within the technological capabilities 

with your leadership. 

Mr. BABIN. Outstanding. And what are some ways that DOE can 

better collaborate with the industry on existing and future initiatives, and how are agencies already engaging with the private sector to meet the needs of our national security space? To you, Dr. 

Dabbar, and if I have time, then someone else can answer as well. 

Mr. DABBAR. So one of the strengths of your last act was that it 

authorized efforts between government and private industry that 

was kind of leading-edge for an early discovery science. First time 

it was, I think, really ever done. So it is—it can continue to be enhanced, but your last act was really groundbreaking on that for 

something so early stage and collaborative. 

I think that as you look at authorizing a big quantum computing 

program, building on what was just announced in Illinois and with 

New York, with a lot of private sector leadership to be direct, I 

think if you authorize programs for government to continue to be 

potentially the first owner of those systems or customer of those 

systems, just like when Dr. Merzbacher’s organization in 1969 controlled the internet with the first nodes—four nodes was controlled 

by her organization. That was a great example of DARPA (Defense 

Advanced Research Projects Agency) and Stanford at the time. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman—— 

Mr. BABIN. Thank you, and I’m out of time. 
90 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina, Ms. Ross, for 

5 minutes. 

Ms. ROSS. Thank you for holding this hearing, Mr. Chairman, 

and to Ranking Member Lofgren, and thank you to all the panelists for being here today. 

I’m proud to represent North Carolina’s 2d Congressional District 

in the Research Triangle and home to the IBM Quantum Hub at 

NC State University. Since its opening, the IBM Quantum Hub has 

been a center of quantum computing, education, research, development, and implementation. I also recently visited the Duke Quantum Center, a unique vertical quantum institute located just outside my district, which I believe Representative Foushee will be 

telling you all about. It’s a really, really—you actually get to see 

the computers, the inside of them. It’s really cool. Anyway, I’m excited about quantum advancements being made in our home State 

of North Carolina, and look forward to your testimony. 

I do want to point out one of the major barriers to research development and education in quantum information science is the relative lack of shared research infrastructure and instrumentation, 

and I heard a lot about this at Duke. The National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee released a report just last Friday calling for Congress to invest in more infrastructure for quantum in 

the reauthorization of the Quantum Act. 

So, Dr. Tahan, you—could you talk more about the scientific 

community’s need for quantum-related research infrastructure and 

what Congress should be doing to address these challenges in the 

reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act? 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, thank you, Congresswoman. We worked very 

hard, the advisory committee, to get recommendations to inform 

you all as you were writing the new legislation. One of those, as 

mentioned, and also in the agency recommendations, was a fund 

for infrastructure investments across the country. This could take 

many different forms, but in terms of the science, it’s how do we 

give researchers access to the tools that can sometimes cost $3–5 

million apiece in a more efficient way such that we can move the 

science forward? You know, you don’t want to become a professor 

at NC State and then have to wait 5 years to get the tools in place 

to actually do your job. And I—this is something we hear about 

from many different professionals across the country. 

So one way to do that is to create programs like the qubit foundry program to make devices and give them out across the country, 

have centralized places like Lincoln Labs, national labs that make 

the qubits, or from industry, make the qubits and give them so 

that the science can be done on campus with students and we can 

come up with new ideas. Another way is to provide sources to equip 

labs. That’s—that—those things are not typically done within the 

R&D funding program at the agencies. It really has to be an addition. It’s purely for equipment and an investment around that. So 

that’s really what I think the greatest opportunity is. 

Ms. ROSS. OK. And, Dr. Rieffel, how does NASA currently fund 

and share research infrastructure? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. We have broad collaborations with industry, with 

other government labs. We’re also part of two of the National 
91 

Quantum Initiative Centers and have access to the technology 

there. One of the really exciting things to build on the previous 

question has been to see hardware moving from place to place as 

opposed to staying in one lab. And as we work with other agencies 

and across the different centers at NASA, we expect to be able to 

support these efforts in really phenomenal ways. 

Ms. ROSS. Thank you very much. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Sorry, can I jump in—— 

Ms. ROSS. Sure, absolutely. 

Dr. EDWARDS [continuing]. Just to—— 

Ms. ROSS. My next question was for you, so you can take the remainder of the time. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Oh, if you would like to ask it. 

Ms. ROSS. No, go ahead. 

Dr. EDWARDS. OK. I just wanted to underscore this need for infrastructure through an educational lens. So Illinois—and I believe 

the vision also actually at Duke Quantum Center of which I’ve also 

visited, Dr. Monroe was my postdoctoral advisor, but both Illinois 

and there and other places, we’re talking about user facilities and 

open access educational testbeds to cross-train students and even 

be flexible to do upskilling of the current workforce. 

I think there’s a risk right now that with the current investments, people don’t have access to easily get into these, particularly 

students, and so I see a need that you could build educational 

testbeds, coupled with user facilities at universities, to provide access to electrical engineers, computer scientists, physicists because 

we still do need them even though it’s just a—it’s not just physics, 

mathematicians and others to work at the different levels of the 

pipeline from K–12 all the way to upskilling. 

Ms. ROSS. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Garcia, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. GARCIA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 

witnesses, a very important discussion here obviously. 

I think we’re at a really meaningful part of our Nation’s history. 

I actually view this technology quantum coupled with AI and machine learning as the fourth offset, the fourth military offset. The 

first offset, if you recall, was our nuclear programs, the Manhattan 

Project, the propulsion programs that paralleled that, the second 

offset being stealth technology and the technologies that were derived from that that gave us this asymmetric advantage over our 

adversaries on the global stage. 

I think the third offset can best be defined as the autonomy and 

miniaturization of systems that yielded things like the B–2, the B– 

21 now being produced in my district, as well as UAVs (unmanned 

aerial vehicles) en masse. 

And I think that the fourth offset, like I said, is now the ability 

to overlay the quantum computing and underpin the AI and machine learning to—by quantum to fully enable the processing of 

data, the data management systems, the networks of networks, the 

information flow on the—you know, the fronts, the military fronts 

specifically. 

When you look at it through that paradigm, it puts a little bit 

of a different importance on these programs. And I think, given 
92 

sort of the nascent position of some of these programs—and, first 

of all, I think we’re also drinking our own bathwater a little bit relative to China’s progress. I think we are trying to have a self-fulfilling prophecy that China is not doing the same investments and 

not making the same progress that we are. I think they actually 

are keeping pace and they are spending as much money. It may not 

be visible to us, but they’re utilizing an entire commercial base in 

conjunction with their military operations. So I think we should be 

paranoid about their progress and not assume that we have a technological advantage or even a funding advantage in many cases. I 

think it’s very important to look at it from a disadvantage perspective and a paradigm that we need to catch up so that we keep our 

foot on the pedal and we gain efficiencies. 

But I also think because it is the fourth offset, and I really believe that, that from a security perspective, to your point, Dr. 

Tahan, we need to be proactive. And I don’t get the sense across 

the disparate agencies, the government side and the commercial 

side, that we are actually putting in place the security protocols, 

and not on the fundamental research, but on the actual technology 

development, the higher-end technology development that could 

feed into weapons systems. My concern is that we are not vetting 

all of the all folks that are working these programs to the levels 

that we should. Do we have insight into how many Chinese nationals are working these programs? Have we done background checks? 

These don’t necessarily need to be classified programs, but do we 

manage and keep track of the personnel working these technologies 

that are feeding into our fourth offset? 

My concern with the CHIPS Act—I ended up supporting it, but 

I spent probably 6 hours in the skiff talking to intel and Department of Commerce and Department of Defense—that the investments we are making in CHIPS didn’t port cleanly to DOD applications, that we were focusing on 7, 9 nanometer wafers and not 

looking at the smaller wafer chip sets that would go into 

hypersonics. 

The second concern I had that—is that we weren’t porting over 

the requirements for supporting quantum development. You know, 

I don’t recall seeing any sort of specific tailoring of the semiconductor development to quantum computing, whether it’s quantum 

dot arrays or the layers and substrates needed to do what is necessary for quantum computing. 

And the third concern I had with the CHIPS Act was that we 

weren’t looking at how to protect the intellectual property across 

all of these efforts. They’re all evolving on separate islands almost, 

and we’re allowing for venues to share information, which is good, 

we’ve got to be able to share information, but we also have to protect that information from the CCP and then also make sure that 

the folks working these programs are vetted and not effectively getting educated here, getting smart on the technology, and then 

going back to mainland China, where they may not have a choice 

to share the information. 

So I’ve used up my time just talking about this, but I’m really 

concerned that we as a government right now are not looking at 

this as a national security program and that we are only looking 

at this as sort of a commercial program, maybe not only, but not 
93 

enough emphasis on the national security implications of this. The 

idea—you know, the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) data 

breach from several years ago, the only thing really keeping the 

Chinese from really leveraging that data against us is their ability 

to compute and manage that data. So I’ll end with that. I don’t 

have any questions. 

And, Ms. Edwards, the QUEST program, I’d like to take it offline. We’re going into markups for appropriations, so if you can 

help us understand that. 

I yield back, Mr. Chair. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Bowman, for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. BOWMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all 

the witnesses for being here. 

The CHIPS and Science Act is intended to promote domestic development, manufacturing, and testing of advanced semiconductors, and the definition in the bill is specific about semiconductors. 

However, companies like SEEQC based in my district are designing 

and manufacturing more advanced chips for scaling quantum technologies using superconductors. Superconductors are useful for 

quantum computing, quantum and classical sensing, and other 

cases outlined in the NQI. Does anyone have thoughts on the role 

that superconductors could play in the advancement of the quantum computing industry? And what might be needed from Congress or the Administration here? 

Mr. Dabbar, I will turn it to you first, given the Superconducting 

Quantum Materials and Systems Center managed by the DOE. 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So Westchester County is certainly a leader in quantum technologies. SEEQC in Elmsford has 

some very interesting control systems which could lead to scaling 

of quantum chips well beyond what most people are talking about. 

IBM has obviously made significant announcements in Westchester 

County in their operations. And then finally, the CHIPS and 

Science Act authorizing a quantum network to be bid I think it is 

extremely likely that New York will win, and there’ll be networks 

not only in the city and Long Island but up to your town and Westchester. 

The support for those sort of efforts, I think, would be critical, 

and I think one of the things that people don’t see is that companies like IBM, like SEEQC, like what’s going on in Brookhaven are 

far beyond basic science, and I think first deployments in conjunction with the private sector, as you mentioned, but also with universities and labs, including in New York, will—are ready. And so 

that’s why when a number of people here talk about first deployment and cooperatives between universities and labs and companies, it’s ready. 

Mr. BOWMAN. Awesome. Would anyone else like to just add? 

Dr. EDWARDS. It looks like a lot of people, but maybe I will just 

very quickly say that the one thing that in my experience with the 

superconducting technology is that the ability to make high coherence qubits is a grand challenge that Dr. Tahan is familiar with 

deeply, and I think that it relies on currently infrastructure from 

a few companies that are overseas in order to successfully make 
94 

qubits. We have a piece of equipment at the University of Illinois 

that we waited 12 months for, and it’s one of the only pieces of 

equipment in the world that’s known to make successful high coherence qubits using superconductors. And so I—at least it—that 

is publicly available, and it’s very expensive. So when you ask what 

people can do, I think it’s important to look at these investments 

to buildup the supply chain. And I’ll—of course, I think the panelists have other comments. 

Dr. RIEFFEL. We’re really excited, as part of the NASA QuAIL 

team, to be part of C2QA (Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage) right out of Brookhaven and SQMS run out of Fermi Lab, 

which both do superconducting technologies and have really advanced that. Thank you all for supporting those centers. 

I want to mention that in addition to doing faster computing, 

superconducting technologies and other quantum technologies have 

the potential of reducing energy consumption for the computation, 

and that that’s another real advantage that we can push on here. 

So thank you again for your support. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. And I’ll just add that SEEQC is actually a 

member of our team that put in this proposal to develop prototyping capability. They’re a key facility that we hope will be able 

to grow so that the broad community can use their expertise and 

capabilities to make these systems. 

Mr. BOWMAN. Please. 

Dr. TAHAN. I’ve been working on crowd computing for most of my 

career. You know, we make some chips at SEEQC in my home lab. 

It’s a great lab. 

I’ll just say in terms of what Congress can do, you know, as the 

CHIPS and Science Act is implemented, you know, there’s about $11 billion in R&D in the National Semiconductor Technology Center (NSTC), advanced packaging. If we can ensure that emerging 

technologies or quantum are covered in the implementation of 

those R&D facilities, that’s the greatest opportunity, frankly, probably of a generation to ensure that we have continued technical 

leadership of the next generation of IT. You know, so facilities like 

the DOD Commons—you know, that’s something that we worked 

on internally to encourage quantum to be part of that, but also as 

the NSTC gets stood up, that they include exotic materials like 

superconductors, of optics, other things that will matter beyond 

CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) to future quantum and other types of technologies like neuromorphic computing. 

Mr. BOWMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman yields back. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr. Obernolte, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. OBERNOLTE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to our 

witnesses. It’s been a fascinating hearing on a really important 

topic. 

I think we’re all in furious agreement on a few things, first of 

all, that NQI should be reauthorized; second of all, that we need 

more people and more money. We have talked about a couple of 

problems, and I think every single witness has brought up these 

problems in your testimony: One, the problem of enabling a quantum-skilled workforce and growing that workforce, and then the 
95 

second problem of commercializing some of the technology that’s 

been developed in labs and in academia. And I think everyone at 

the table mentioned this problem. 

I want to point out that these two problems are related because 

if we can solve the second problem, the second problem solves the 

first problem. If we get more commercial application, you’re going 

to get more private investment. You’re going to get companies that 

are delivering these solutions to market. They are going to create 

jobs. They’re going to create pipelines into their companies. They’re 

going to create their own training programs, and that’ll make this 

self-reinforcing cycle that solves the first problem of the quantum 

educated workforce. 

Ranking Member Lofgren asked a great question on this, about 

how we start doing that, getting these applications out of the lab 

and into commercialization. And the answer was, generally, we 

need better communication between the labs and academia and 

commercial companies. I’m not sure I agree. Count me skeptical on 

that, and here’s why. I mean, I think the problem that we’re facing 

is that most of the potential applications for quantum computing 

technology are largely still theoretical. It is great that IBM has a 

chip with 433 qubits on it. You know, that’s amazing, way more 

than we thought we would have at this point, but we’re still going 

to need millions, if not tens of millions of qubits to solve the kind 

of computing problems that traditional computers are unable to 

solve. And we still have—as has been brought up, we still have 

some technical problems to solve like the problem with decoherence 

before we get there. 

So, you know, I really think we need to identify the low-hanging 

fruit, some applications of quantum computing technology that we 

can start to commercialize now while we’re working on these 

longer-term solutions. 

So, Mr. Dabbar, you’re the private sector guy here. Do you agree 

with that assessment? And what are the low-hanging fruit that you 

can see that that might lend themselves to immediate commercial 

application? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes. Yes, Congressman, sticking to your quantum 

computing specific point, you know, one of the three major use 

cases. I think the likelihood of there being a heterogeneous, highperformance computer that has QPUs (quantum processing units) 

as part—underline the word ‘‘part’’—of the architecture in conjunction with CPUs (central processing units) and GPUs (graphics processing units) for it to be an accelerator to narrow down very large 

problems is actually something that could probably be designed 

into the next high-performance computer today. That’s why I recommend that when you authorize the next high-performance computing program for the national labs, that you direct them to do 

that. 

The computer at Oak Ridge was—the last previous one, Summit, 

was the first one that had two different types of chips, and that 

was proven, and it dramatically improved AI and general computing performance. I think it’s low-hanging fruit to start taking a 

look at the chips that are going to be available in the next computing cycle to be included as part of a system. A fully quantum 

computer that has advantageous capabilities is, I think, farther 
96 

out, but I think as part of a system, I think that’s low-hanging 

fruit. 

Mr. OBERNOLTE. Thank you. Yes, that’s encouraging. 

Dr. Edwards, I really respect the role that you have here on this 

panel because you are dealing with education very near—a situation very near and dear to my heart, which is education. I think 

the problem is bigger than the one that we’re confronting here. I 

mean, we’ve got—China has passed the number of—has passed the 

U.S. on the number of Ph.D.’s in computer science that they have 

awarded a couple of years ago, and within the next year or two, 

they’ll award double the number that we award. So our problem, 

I think, is broader than just educating students in quantum computing. I think we don’t have enough students in STEM in general 

and computer science in particular. How do we solve that problem? 

Dr. EDWARDS. So this is a very big question, so maybe I’ll keep 

my remarks brief and—— 

Mr. OBERNOLTE. Well, you’ve got 21 seconds. 

Dr. EDWARDS. I know. And then I’ll be happy to answer also in 

writing. 

So quantum information science is more than just quantum computing. I think we all know that. And there are near-term technologies, as well as far-term applications that you spoke of. It’s a 

convergent area that spans all of STEM. So it’s an opportunity 

akin to the space race, an opportunity to take this moment to inspire students and to inspire the current workforce to buildup public literacy and to unite across all sectors to address the critical 

challenges you talk about. It can’t fix all of STEM, absolutely not. 

I don’t say that, but I think that we can use the NQI reauthorization and continued Federal investments to buildup the infrastructure to take a next step forward. And again, I’m happy to provide 

more detailed remarks in writing. Thank you so much. 

Mr. OBERNOLTE. We’ll follow up. Thank you. I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentlelady from North Carolina, Mrs. Foushee, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. FOUSHEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this Committee hearing today, and thank you to the witnesses for your testimony and for appearing before us this morning. 

I am proud that in my district, North Carolina’s 4th, indeed includes the Duke Quantum Center, a partner of the Department of 

Energy-funded Quantum Systems Accelerator, one of five quantum 

information resource centers in the country. Mr. Dabbar, the Department of Energy Quantum User Expansion for Science and 

Technology Program, or QUEST, was first authorized in CHIPS 

and Science to match researchers with existing commercially available quantum computing capabilities. Should the next phase of the 

NQI be expanded to include quantum computer use of facilities? I 

understand from reading your testimony that you have some recommendations for this program in the context of the NQIA reauthorization. Could you please elaborate on those recommendations? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes. Yes, Congresswoman. So I think there’s two 

potential things as you mentioned in your question. The QUEST 

program, which allows computer access for all researchers and develop computational scientists in the quantum algorithm space that 
97 

was authorized in the CHIPS Act, I highly recommend that that 

get even more accelerated or you consider that. Taking that up to 

$50 million a year is something I would recommend, which is a little bit of a bump from the CHIPS Act. Getting broad access to 

quantum cloud capabilities that researchers at universities or 

schools all over the country, I think, would be a great use for development and research. And then I would also, as I mentioned previously, recommend a concentrated effort to building the first heterogeneous, high-performance computer system at one or more of 

the national labs as part of the next big supercomputer effort, similar to what was announced here recently by DOD and some private 

companies. 

Mrs. FOUSHEE. Thank you. And, Dr. Edwards, although I understand that many quantum technology jobs require extensive postsecondary education, there are also many roles that only require an 

associate degree from a community college or trade school. Can you 

discuss what the skilled technical workforce looks like for quantum 

and how we can enable affordable educational opportunities for 

people to train for those jobs? 

Dr. EDWARDS. So for the second part of that question about how 

can we enable affordable training, I think we need to develop the 

curriculum that was referred to before. There are some initial 

strides that have been made possible by investments of the initial 

5 years of the NQI Act, and it needs to be modular to be able to 

be deployed in community colleges. We need community college 

consortiums. I know there’s several of them working to go—to 

model after the photonics initiative to buildup capacity—or capability at the technician level. 

For the actual skills needed, I actually would like to maybe ask 

Dr. Merzbacher to—— 

Mrs. FOUSHEE. I was coming there. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Oh, excellent. I was going to say I think she can 

provide more depth on the initial understanding of what skills are 

there, but to underline that this is all happening in real time, and 

we don’t have enough data yet. And so I think building on what 

maybe Dr. Merzbacher will say, we need more—we need to know 

more in order to design these programs for the populations you’re 

talking about. 

Mrs. FOUSHEE. Thank you for that. So Dr. Merzbacher, if you 

would, please. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Yes, I’ll add to that as well. So my organization has a number of standing committees. One is the Workforce 

Committee. It’s very active, and it involves members who are both 

in the education business, but also the industry members. And we 

asked them, do you have jobs that are being done in your company 

by a Ph.D. that could be done by a technician? And they all said 

yes. So there’s a huge opportunity here. And I was talking with actually someone from your district about this. He said we don’t have 

as much trouble hiring Ph.D.’s as we do technicians. 

So we’re doing a workshop this year to get more understanding 

around this. I think it’s—it is a very diverse ecosystem, and companies have different needs when it comes to technicians, but a technician doesn’t need to have quantum in front of their name. If they 

understand how to use vacuum systems, how to run electronics, 
98 

how to keep things maintained and operating, they can be qualified. So what we need is to sort of get them quantum-comfortable 

and appreciating the opportunities and then, you know, helping to 

connect them with those opportunities. A lot of times technicians 

don’t necessarily relocate across the country, and so there’s a difference in the education at that level, but it’s equally important. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentlelady’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Mr. Fleischmann, 

for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you. I thank the Chairman and the 

Ranking Member for having this hearing, and to our distinguished 

panel, thank you very much. Secretary Dabbar, it was a privilege 

working with you in the last Administration. I’m glad that we 

could continue to work together, but to each and every one of you 

all, thank you so much. 

So you know, I represent the people of the 3d District of Tennessee, which encompasses the entire Oak Ridge reservation and 

all that it entails, including our great national laboratory. 

If I may, the main goal of the National Quantum Initiative Act 

was to accelerate development of quantum information science and 

technology applications in the United States over 10 years. Since 

the law passed, we’ve seen major advancements in technology, 

which has led to significant Federal and private investment. Last 

year, Chattanooga’s utility EPB launched the EPE—EPB Quantum 

Network, which is the first industry-led commercially available 

quantum network designed for private companies, government, and 

university researchers to run quantum equipment and applications 

using EPB’s fiberoptic infrastructure. And while we still need to 

continue our quantum research and development activities, I think 

we have a real opportunity to jump to the next step, which is connecting the science to specific application areas. 

I’m interested in the panelists’ thoughts talking—taking a regional approach to this, one where the key players in the region 

would form a consortium to create a testbed where one could take 

advantage of everyone’s strengths and focus them on specific applications. 

Using east Tennessee as an example, you could take EPB and its 

network, bring in the Oak Ridge National Laboratory with its expertise in exascale and quantum computing, maybe some business 

and universities and focus them on applying quantum science and 

technology to securing the electrical grid. 

My question for the panel, do you think a regional approach like 

this might lead to accelerating scientific discoveries and translating 

them into real-world applications? And I think we can begin with— 

on this side and move across the panel, and I thank you all. 

Dr. TAHAN. Thank you for the question, Congressman. Let me 

just start by saying that the U.S. Government is taking protecting 

our networks extremely seriously, and NIST has been leading a 

standards competition for quantum-resistant cryptography, and the 

government is working to deploy that as fast as possible. That does 

not require quantum technology right at the beginning. 

In the long term where we look to quantum networks, hopefully 

connecting our quantum computers and sensors, we’re very fortunate in the government to have a lot of expertise in the agencies, 
99 

and we brought them together to make recommendations for you 

through various reports. One of them is the quantum networking 

report. The key thing is to focus on the hard technical challenges. 

One thing we really need are very high-fidelity components to connect different types of qubits to enable a network. If we can do 

that, if we can solve that science problem, we can make everything 

the industry wants to do much easier, and I think that’s maybe 

very well-focused and compatible with regional teams focusing on 

these core transduction components that can go into those networks. If we can solve those problems first, then everything else 

becomes much easier. And I would encourage—you know, this 

being a science-focused initiative, the government can really accelerate that hard piece and make it easier for all the applications 

thereafter. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you, sir. Secretary Dabbar? 

Mr. DABBAR. Congressman, the Chattanooga effort with Oak 

Ridge is a great example of the capabilities and prospects of regional efforts. Almost by definition, if you’re going to build a network, it has to be regional. And so Oak Ridge in east Tennessee 

is at the lead and there’s others. New York, Chicago are other big 

areas of the country where things are being tested. The CHIPS Act 

authorizes certain aspects of that. I would recommend that this 

Committee look to enhance that because that’s the way that things 

get built out. Once again, going back to the internet example of 

1969, that’s how the first four nodes of the internet started, and 

I think that’s where we’re at with quantum is to do the same. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you, sir. 

Dr. RIEFFEL. I agree that regional efforts are very important. 

Bringing people together to work together in ways that can only be 

done if people are close by. On the other hand, with the technology 

that’s here, being able to work across the country is really important as well. And, for example, we at NASA worked with people at 

Oak Ridge National Lab to support Google’s quantum supremacy 

experiment, and so being able to do cross-country collaborations is 

also important, so balancing those things is critical going forward. 

Thank you. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time is—— 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. OK. I guess I have to yield back. I was going 

to ask the others if I might get at least a 10-second response, Mr. 

Chair? 

Chairman LUCAS. Yes, Cardinal, 10 seconds each. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. I just want to say that EPB is a very active 

member of my consortium, and I visited them in March. We held 

actually our meeting in Chattanooga so that we could go and visit. 

I think it’s a great model. I think quantum expertise isn’t consolidated within regions across the country, so if you want best-inclass, you’re going to have to kind of break that open a little bit. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you. 

Dr. EDWARDS. So I think that building infrastructure to have regional hubs in areas especially that are quantum information 

deserts is critical and I think could—is—it aligns with the notion 

that our educational systems are local and locally governed and 

provides on-the-ground access or could provide if we were success-
100 

ful on-the-ground access for people of all ages to have a front row 

seat I was talking about. 

Mr. FLEISCHMANN. Thank you. I thank the Chair’s indulgence. 

Mr. Chair, I yield back. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The gentleman from North Carolina, Mr. Jackson, is recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. JACKSON. Dr. Tahan, I want to follow up on the answer that 

you just gave to Representative Fleischmann’s question. I’m very 

interested in trying to verbalize for my constituents the gap between the state-of-the-art and practical applications, and I really 

don’t know if that gap is more about scaling up existing technology 

and finding something that’s affordable, or whether there are huge 

technical problems we have to solve. It sounded like your answer 

was that the big thing—the biggest thing the government can do 

is help solve a particular technical problem, and that was the limit 

of my understanding. So am I right about that? 

Dr. TAHAN. Well, this is a pretty broad field. You know, it depends on the category. So there’s computing, networking, sensing, 

right? For networks, the point I was trying to make is that there 

is a classical solution to the risk of a future—far future quantum 

computer that the government is working to deploy—to standardize 

and deploy. There are opportunities for quantum-enabled networks 

to do more, and that’s more of a research and development thing 

that we need to solve a lot of problems to solve. So that’s for networking. 

For computing, you know, the question of applications is always—you know, has been the most important one. You know, 

we’ve taken the last 25 years to build very small research-like computers, 100 qubits, just starting to be at the point where we can’t 

simulate them on our laptops or even on our supercomputers, but 

we don’t have applications to run on those things yet that do anything useful other than science and trying to understand how to 

build bigger computers. We don’t know when quantum computers— 

at what scale they will start to be actually useful like generating 

Nobel Prize science or commercial applications. It could be in the 

next 5 years, it could be longer than that. 

Mr. JACKSON. I want to drill down on that exactly. So the stateof-the-art is roughly 100 qubits. Is that what you’re telling me? 

Dr. TAHAN. Hundreds, hundreds. You know, IBM right now it’s 

a 400-qubit machine, but we’re sort of in the hundreds category 

now. 

Mr. JACKSON. OK. And we really don’t have a working theory as 

to what level of qubit is going to unlock some practically? 

Dr. TAHAN. No, we do. So over the last 20 years, we’ve developed 

algorithms, proposed algorithms that do useful things. One of them 

is cryptanalysis, which is a negative thing. We need to protect 

against. It could break codes. Another is chemistry and materials 

discovery. Those algorithms that we can cost, meaning we know exactly how many qubits you need, the estimates are around hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of qubits, OK? But there are 

other proposed algorithms that are more heuristic, kind of like 

deep learning-based that we cannot with mathematics prove will 

work until you build the machine. 
101 

Mr. JACKSON. OK. 

Dr. TAHAN. So the goal is we need to build bigger machines and 

see if they’re going to work or not. 

Mr. JACKSON. OK. So you think we’ve got some practical applications at the 100,000 level, but we may be some practical applications short of that, but we really don’t know yet? 

Dr. TAHAN. Exactly. 

Mr. JACKSON. OK. Are—between the 100 qubit level that we’re 

at, the state-of-the-art, and 100,000 qubit, what’s the biggest technical challenge? 

Dr. TAHAN. Scaling up, you know, how to control all those qubits. 

Each one of those qubits is like a little, very sensitive animal that 

you need to touch all the time. You need wires or lasers to go down 

to it. So unlike your classical computer, which has, you know, 10 

billion transistors but only 1,000 wires, a computer with 100,000 

quantum transistors would need hundreds of thousands of wires, so 

that’s the big technical challenge. 

Mr. DABBAR. So, Congressman, probably as early as later this 

year, we might have 100,000 qubit chip out there that’s capable, 

and how—the equivalent to architecture of high-performance computers with CPUs and GPUs, we don’t have a GPU chip the size 

of this room. It’s a bank of chips, as you know. And so the likelihood of taking a 100—sorry, 1,000 qubit chip, and starting to network that, maybe 3 or 6 in one cryochamber, so you can maybe get 

to 6,000 qubits. And as was announced recently, as part of a bigger 

high-performance computer with CPUs and GPUs, 100,000 might 

be able to provide an accelerator function to dramatically improve 

that—high-performance computers. 

Mr. JACKSON. I just need to understand. Is there a breakthrough 

that hasn’t happened, or do we have the science and now we’re just 

scaling up? 

Dr. EDWARDS. OK. I might jump in here. 

Mr. JACKSON. Please. 

Dr. EDWARDS. We don’t know yet how to build such a machine. 

There are roadmaps from several companies, but it hasn’t been 

built yet. And the physics—the ability to control this many quantum objects all at once to do computing is of course critical, and we 

will get there, but it’s—there are massive engineering challenges as 

you try to scale this. 

Mr. JACKSON. Name one. 

Dr. EDWARDS. So in the—there’s multiple platforms. We don’t 

know which qubit is the best qubit. There’s superconducting qubits, 

there’s semiconductor qubits, there’s atomic physics qubits, both 

ions and neutral atoms. There’s a number of different ones of those, 

and we know how to get to 100, but the challenge is like Charlie’s—or Dr. Tahan said, the challenge is connecting all the wires. 

In the atomic physics case, it’s using all the lasers. 

And we don’t—we often don’t have the—we’re operating on the 

edge of what’s possible, and people are right now in industry often 

inventing solutions to help be able to circumvent the necessary 

amount of wires or to try to reduce the number of lasers you would 

need to control that many quantum objects and especially to avoid 

or correct errors, which is a major challenge. It’s a really hard 

problem, and we will get there, but there are significant—I don’t 
102 

know if they’re necessarily physics breakthroughs, but there are 

engineering challenges that have to be codeveloped with industry 

in order for us to succeed at building this. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Collins, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

You know, the discussion that we’re having today I think is 

about an area of science which probably very few of us really understand. You know, Albert Einstein himself kind of struggled to 

keep—put his mind around this. And he was often quoted as saying, if quantum theory is correct, it signifies the end of physics as 

a science. So he clearly had mixed views on the subject. 

So my question is to any of the witnesses. What would you tell 

a Georgian in my district if they ask why the government should 

be investing billions in quantum research, and how is it going to 

impact their lives? 

Dr. TAHAN. Maybe I’ll start out by saying it’s already impacted 

their lives. You know, if you think about the global positioning system which helps us get home, that’s estimated to be a trillion-dollar impact in our society. I mean, it saves me every single day from 

a lot of traffic. That is based on quantum clocks or quantum’s—a 

version of a quantum sensor. Magnetic resonance imagers, brain 

imagers are based on our understanding of quantum physics. 

You know, the next-generation brain imagers, if we can really 

bring some of these ideas from lab to market, could be around your 

neck. You know, instead of having to go into a big tube to see if 

you have a tumor, you could be monitored all the time or much 

more—less invasively. I mean, think of what that could do to 

broaden healthcare to the world, right? 

So we can bring these over the market, but we need to keep our 

eye on the ball on the applications that can actually affect society 

and carry it, you know? And that means bringing other agencies 

involves investing in industry to make it happen. 

Mr. COLLINS. All right. 

Mr. DABBAR. Congressman, I just want to highlight the biology 

imaging point. The prospects of moving from an MRI, which, for 

lack of better description, comes up with a blob, right, that you see, 

and you still have to do biopsies and it has to reach a certain scale 

of the cancer, for example, before you can even see it. The prospects of—and NSF has been funding some of this—of a higher end 

either magnetic or other type of quantum imager to go to the individual cell. And so if you could capture and visualize the first cell 

that is cancer and it moves from your thyroid to your pancreas, not 

wait until it turns into a tumor, that’s the possibility. And so the 

possibility of catching something that early with, you know, a piece 

of quantum sensing will remake medicine, and so that’s a prospect. 

Mr. COLLINS. Good. I know—maybe—I had some—another area 

that I really wanted to get into real quick, and I appreciate your 

answers. That really makes it easier when we’re talking to our constituency. We just penned a letter, Chairman Lucas and I did, as 

Committee Chairman, Subcommittee Chairman, to the NSF about 

China and Berkeley and how they were receiving money from the 

Chinese and money from the Federal Government on research, 
103 

semiconductor research, and how they were conducting tours of 

these research facilities for the Chinese, and that’s very concerning. 

I know we’ve been talking about that here this morning. 

I also had the opportunity to speak to a group not too long ago 

about quantum technology. And my question is for Ms. Merzbacher 

and Ms. Edwards. Thank you for the good southern name down 

there, easy to pronounce. When I was talking to them, they mentioned the fact that we need to keep these visas for the Chinese 

coming in because we don’t have people that have the education to 

help us with quantum technology. And that worries me. And so 

from an education standpoint, Ms. Edwards, is that true? Do we 

still need to make sure that we have visas coming through for the 

Chinese, and Ms. Merzbacher? The workforce, you indicated in 

your opening statement, upscaling existing and upcoming workforce, and I would just like some comment on that so that we don’t 

get into this same situation that we have now with the semiconductor research. 

Dr. EDWARDS. So I’m—I admit, I’m not an immigration expert, 

and—but I do recognize the challenges of national security in this 

space, and I do think that, you know, aligned with the recommendations that came out on Friday, it is actually important, 

especially at the graduate level, for us to continue to draw on the 

international expertise and the domestic expertise that’s available. 

We need to simultaneously build the domestic workforce, and that 

is a major, major gap. And we should not get distracted from doing 

that. But it is really important to recognize the contributions internationally that colleagues across the world, including China, have 

brought and that they work in—you know, work in our labs and 

academia, and I think this is incredibly valuable. And there are 

recommendations that Dr. Tahan can speak to more directly about 

this. 

Chairman LUCAS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair 

now recognizes gentlelady from Ohio, Mrs. Sykes, for 5 minutes. 

Mrs. SYKES. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the panel 

for your time with us. This is a—certainly a very interesting and 

important conversation. 

One thing I’ve probably said in this Committee and otherwise is 

the best part of this job is learning about a lot of fascinating pieces 

of information, technologies, professions, but I also wonder how I 

would ever know about those things if I were not a Member of Congress. And it frustrates me as much as it encourages me to learn 

about these things. 

And I wanted to go back to something you mentioned, Dr. Tahan, 

about the people being the most important part of this equation, 

and none of this technology works without people who truly understand and know what’s going on. And when I think about the people in my community in Ohio’s 13th District and what do they actually know about quantum technology and how do they get involved in quantum technology? And is it just something that 

they’ve seen or heard the term on TV but it’s not for them? 

So I would like you to dive a little bit more into what are the 

opportunities that we can do to connect the dots to our constituents 

and members of our community who are not familiar with it and 
104 

then start talking about the pipeline to get them involved and employed in this. 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, a pleasure to answer this question. It’s something I’m very passionate about, you know, just looking at my career, how I got into science. And to me, it comes down to there 

being careers, you know, for parents that want their kids to go into 

and then educating, inspiring, and giving experiences to people, 

you know? So what we have done is try to use the White House 

to amplify the great efforts that are already going on in NQI. World Quantum Day, we’ve tried to make into big events where we 

have, you know, famous people, frankly, give videos about quantum. We’ve—with Emily’s and other people’s help, we brought 

quantum modules into hundreds of schools across the country to— 

and that’s 100 schools times, you know, 30 students, you know, so 

we’re giving people a taste of like, this is really cool. It’s a great 

career. Many people can be successful in it, and now it’s our job 

to even—how do we scale that even more? And that’s really what 

we’re talking about, having a center, having, you know, more coordinated activities to really bring this into living rooms and not 

just, you know, The New York Times op-eds. It’s—that’s what we 

really need to do. 

Mrs. SYKES. Well, thank you for that, and I also appreciated your 

comment about moving this beyond the top 25 schools within the 

country and allowing other universities. And I believe that was 

you, Dr. Edwards, who has a degree from Appalachian State. And, 

again, thinking about how do we get people who are a part of tech 

schools, trade schools, State schools involved in this and not feeling 

like they just have to be Ivy Leaguers to be a part of this conversation. And in reading your testimony about your K through 12 curriculum and encouraging more people, if you could share a little bit 

more about the work that you have been doing and that you can 

continue to do with the right support from people like us. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Thank you for that question. So I would like to say 

that—acknowledge that the work that I’ve been doing is a work of 

an incredible group of people, and that really I’m just providing a 

conduit to share what’s going on. And so what we’ve been doing— 

and my colleagues at University of Chicago and University of Pittsburgh have worked very hard to pull together teachers to build a 

quantum information science framework for introducing quantum 

into high school chemistry, high school physics, computer science, 

math, as well as middle school. There’s also a public elementary 

school in Philadelphia that we’ve talked to that—we don’t have 

anything for—formally for elementary school outside of the activities that Dr. Tahan mentioned, but there’s a school there that’s actually experimenting with having a science lab focused on quantum 

in the elementary school that students have exposure to. 

And so the framework that we’re developing is agile, and the 

next step is curriculum. So what needs to happen is a center to 

build on the steps that we’ve taken so far. There needs to be a national resource to develop curriculum, to develop—to connect these 

different parts of the pipeline, to work and buildupon the data collection that the QEDC has supported, and to really buildup robust 

programs and make sure that they are effective and, again, address 

these information deserts that exist widely across our country. And 
105 

so we’ve been working on it, but it’s—we need a center or something to build on this partnership, the Q–12 that’s currently voluntary and supported with limited funds from NSF for a short period of time. 

Mrs. SYKES. Thank you so much for that. And with my remaining time, I’ll just express one part that I just don’t hear often in 

here and would like to hear more of is the fact that representation 

does matter. The fact that we have three women here on the panel 

is incredible. It would be great to see more people of color as we’re 

trying to find the missing million technology workforce that is not 

here, and if you can see it, you can be it and you can believe it. 

And as I sit across from Eddie Bernice Johnson, it is a reminder 

to me that seeing someone on the wall that looks like you allows 

you to see yourself in these positions. So thank you for all that 

you’re doing and continue to be good representations of what it 

means to be a woman in STEM. 

Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. COLLINS [presiding]. Thank you, Mrs. Sykes. The 

gentlelady’s time has expired. The Chair now recognizes Dr. 

McCormick from Georgia for 5 minutes. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So what an esteemed 

presentation today, so many educated people. I’m really excited. 

One thing that caught my—I had a bunch of questions asked from 

a bunch of people, but right off the bat, I wanted to address Dr. 

Merzbacher. Am I’m saying that correctly? You said something 

very interesting during your presentation. You said that we’re not 

getting the same investment from the private side of the world that 

we used to have and that that’s kind of tapered off, and that’s why 

it requires more government investing to continue the leaps, if you 

will, in technology in this. Can you tell me why you think it is that 

investing in quantum technology is decreasing? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Well, it actually isn’t decreasing, but the 

growth has slowed, important difference. So when you look at the 

growth, it’s not as fast as it was, and that could be for a number 

of reasons. It could just be that there was sort of an initial spike 

and things have sort of tapered off a little bit, but there’s still a 

strong investment taking place. You know, look at the tech economy. It’s an economic situation that may be influencing or impacting this. That could be temporary. 

I think there’s high risk, and there’s a lot of hardware problems 

that we heard about today, and those are not the typical VC (venture capital) investment opportunity. And so these are all reasons 

why I think that there really are areas where government has the 

opportunity to step in, de-risk, bring things a little bit farther 

along, and then the private sector will come in when they see a 

business case, but they have to see that business case. 

And I will just point out that we haven’t said the word supply 

chain yet here, but there is a supply chain that’s critical and has 

some special components for quantum systems, and those companies are sort of looking around and they don’t see the markets 

today, so there’s a chicken-and-egg problem. So whether they’re 

using their own R&D funds or looking for investors from outside, 

that chicken-and-egg market problem is where we are right now. 
106 

Mr. MCCORMICK. That’s what kind of concerned me a little bit 

just from the standpoint—I—that surprised me when you said that 

concerning what’s going on with AI and the private investment in 

AI. You’re right, once the seeding money is there and we see it 

start to bloom, it’s very unusual to see somebody stop with the investment from the private sector if they see something that’s really 

forward-looking and visionary. So I just thought that was interesting. I’m not sure we want the government to continue after the 

seeding money. I like to see the free market just kind of go with 

whatever it’s supposed to go with, so I’m—thank you for that remark. 

Dr. Rieffel, I wanted to really quickly—I just went to SAS in 

Luxembourg and was looking at all the different orbital systems 

and stuff like that. I know that one of the things that we talked 

about recently was that the NASA Ames quantum computing and 

the way it tracks orbits and space debris and everything else like 

that. What is this technology going to be used to take that next 

step in this huge, vast universe of debris and satellites and everything else like that and the way—is it going to have a direct application in tracking this immense population in the inner and outer 

space? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. We believe so. The extent of that is still a research 

question, but there’s quantum sensing technologies that can help 

with that. The other thing is that there are huge computational 

challenges there. We also need to get the data back. There’s more 

and more data, which is super exciting, but we need to get that 

back, and so doing data compression and the like can be super 

helpful there as well. Lots of possibilities here for quantum computation in those areas. 

As was mentioned before, this is a heuristic area for the next few 

years, and that means we don’t have pencil-and-paper proofs yet, 

but the technology is just at the point where we can do things on 

the processors that we can’t do in simulation, and so the next 5, 

10 years are going to be super exciting on that. 

Mr. MCCORMICK. Yes. It’s crazy to think about how complex the 

calculations get when you’re in a 3-D universe and you’re talking 

about the vast space that we have to compute as far as 

deconflicting. 

My final question, Under Secretary Dabbar, how do you think 

the regulatory burden is going to affect both the development and 

the—with the guardrails on future technologies in the quantum 

space as far as where do we draw the line, you know, controlling 

the process of leaking out information that can be harmful or developing processes that can be harmful versus developing stuff that 

can protect us? How do we regulate as Congressmen and women 

what we’re supposed to do in the future? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So I—as I mentioned earlier, I’d 

recommend the DOE risk matrix for technologies as a screening 

mechanism that not only DOE but other agencies could use, that 

they can green light certain open-science topics, and we’re like, OK, 

but we’re consciously knowing what’s OK, and then identifying 

what type of technologies should not be, you know, engaged with 

adversary nations. 
107 

Mr. MCCORMICK. We’ll look for guidance on that. Thank you. 

With that, I yield. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you. The gentleman’s time has expired. The 

Chair now recognizes Mr. Frost from Florida for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FROST. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

So even experts in quantum computing see their field as mysterious, complex, and full of surprises, but one thing is clear, that 

this is a powerful, revolutionary technology on a historic scale. Dr. 

Rieffel, did I say that right—correctly? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. Rieffel. 

Mr. FROST. Rieffel. Thanks to NASA, industry, and research 

being done at the University of Central Florida—Go Knights—that 

is in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, rockets are sending 

science experiments into the skies above my district all the time. 

You’ve discussed how NASA conducts research, including basic 

quantum physics to understand how quantum mechanics—to understand quantum mechanics and general relativity. What are the 

unique benefits of the International Space Station for quantum 

physics experiments? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. So we’re able to do things up there that are unprecedented. Just as one example, it’s the unique place where we can 

get Bose-Einstein condensates and explore that. I also just want to 

go with some of what you’ve said there. This is an incredibly exciting area. It’s also one that none of us totally understand. I think 

critical for building up the workforce is to have people be super excited about working in areas that they don’t totally understand and 

that those mysteries there will really help us go further in that 

area. There are a lot of NASA areas like do people really know 

what a black hole is? But people are super excited about that. Let’s 

do that for quantum information sciences as well. 

Mr. FROST. Dr. Dabbar, where would quantum computing research be in the United States if Federal agencies and funding had 

not provided the infrastructure that you’ve spoken about today? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. High-performance computing 

and quantum is a subset—quantum computing is a subset—would 

not anywhere near be placing the United States in a leadership position without Federal investment. 

The first high-performance computers, the No. 1, you know, next 

high-performance computer is always developed by the Federal system, namely the DOE national labs. So the current No. 1 is at Oak 

Ridge, the previous one is at Oak Ridge, the next one will be in 

Illinois, and right now, you won’t see commercial customers paying 

for the very high-end next chip. It will be—it has historically been 

the national labs, as well as NSA. And so that’s the only way that 

the next stage—and it’s been a tried-and-true method of accomplishing that. 

Mr. FROST. And, Dr. Tahan, what would you say would happen 

if these investments did not continue? 

Dr. TAHAN. If you look at the history of quantum computing, you 

know, as the government’s seed investments in building the technologies that enabled the 100 qubit machines, the 100 qubit machines we have today, right? Industry is mostly focused on integrating what’s been—already been discovered into trying to make 

something useful that they can provide their customers value with, 
108 

right? So if we stopped government investment, all the new inventions that would enable the 1,000 qubit, the 10,000 qubit systems 

would be much less likely to be implemented. And as Paul said the 

draw of a customer would be lost, an important customer. So, I 

mean, it’s really critical that the government stay engaged—— 

Mr. FROST. Yes. 

Dr. TAHAN [continuing]. And make sure that we’re still leaders. 

Mr. FROST. Yes, I mean, it’s good to know that Federal investments can really serve as a broader investment to attract private 

funding and spur innovation in the country. 

And to any one of our witnesses, I wanted to give anybody the 

opportunity to bring up any suggested improvements in the National Quantum Initiative Act that hasn’t been mentioned yet. 

Dr. TAHAN. I’d just like to mention, once again, you know, we 

have international allies and partners that are vital to growing this 

ecosystem. Quantum is extremely broad. We can’t investigate every 

part of phase space, and we also need a trusted supply chain with 

countries who we trust, right? So we need to follow up on international cooperation statements by having some kind of joint funds 

to push this forward, independent of everything else we’re doing in 

the United States. I think that would be really beneficial. 

Mr. DABBAR. Just to highlight that, authorization from the act to 

allow for what Charlie just said, to allow the agencies to know that 

that you say it’s OK I think is key. DOE centers that happened in 

the first NQI we have—at Fermilab we have Italian cooperation. 

And what was just announced at University of Chicago in terms of 

the big quantum computing effort, Japan is now the—really the 

second most powerful high-performance computing country in the 

world is a part of that consortium. So I think any authorizing language would—makes it really clear. The agencies know they have 

authority to do what Charlie just said would be a great line item 

in a bill. 

Mr. FROST. Good. Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Mr. COLLINS. The gentleman’s time has expired. The Chair now 

recognizes Mr. Kean from New Jersey for 5 minutes. 

Mr. KEAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of our 

witnesses for being here today. 

Dr. Merzbacher, in your testimony, you highlight several key 

areas to explore utilizing quantum solutions to solve some of our 

greatest challenges. I’m particularly interested in hearing more 

about the possibility to improve biopharmaceuticals, particularly 

when it comes to drug discovery and personalized medicine. Could 

you please elaborate on how quantum computing and modeling 

may help advancements in this field? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Yes, thanks for that question. The application 

to the pharmaceutical industry is one of the areas of high interest 

on the industry side, and I think it will leverage some of the benefits of quantum computing for being able to optimize and, you 

know, streamline search problems. Today, the way that drug discovery happens is there’s a huge, wide net cast, and then there’s 

a very expensive and long process to winnow that down to find, you 

know, one drug maybe. So there’s a lot of opportunity to improve 

that process to make it more efficient and take less time. 
109 

The pharmaceutical companies are hiring people who have 

enough knowledge about this field to start exploring the application 

of quantum computing in their business. There’s actually a consortium that my group works with that’s focused on life sciences, and 

all of the big pharma companies are there, and they’re actually 

talking quite a lot about what they’re doing because it’s still early 

stage. But I think there are real opportunities, and that’s an example of one where the communities can come together and educate 

each other. The pharmaceutical industry needs to say here’s what 

our problems are, the kinds of challenges we have, and then the 

folks who are doing the development of the software and the hardware can more quickly develop the tools for addressing that. 

Mr. KEAN. Thank you. Dr. Tahan, telecommunications is key to 

our society, and having a strong and resilient telecom infrastructure is critical. From broadband to 5G rollout, optimization after 

emergencies, and keeping our systems up and running, telecommunications sector faces a wide variety of challenges that could 

benefit from quantum technologies. In fact, the Presidential Advisory Committee on Communications recommend a Quantum Sandbox program for developing applications that could benefit communications resilience in a report released on May 2021. Applications 

are already being developed in Europe but not yet in the United 

States. Can you please tell this Committee how U.S. Government 

will engage with the quantum industry and research community to 

help utilize today’s technology for telecommunications, both quantum computing, as well as quantum communications? 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, I’d be happy to, Congressman. I think there’s 

two ways. One, as the country moves to upgrade all our networks 

to quantum-resistant cryptography, there’s a huge opportunity for 

industry because, one, agencies, organizations, companies are going 

to need help understanding where—what parts of their telecommunications infrastructure needs to be upgraded. Then, they 

will need the new routers, the new software to actually upgrade 

them. I mean, this is going to be a very large, long-term upgrade 

cycle. It’s a great opportunity for industry. 

The second part is, as we hopefully through the NQI start to 

build quantum network testbeds to prove out and find the applications for new types of networks that involve quantum mechanics, 

you know, hopefully, there will be opportunities to build the core 

components that go into those networks and make them actually 

reliable and robust. And I think there’s going to be a lot of spinoff 

applications for other parts of telecommunications as well, low 

swap, frequency modulation, and so on, they can impact even classical technology. So I think those are the two domains where 

there’s real opportunity. 

Mr. KEAN. OK. And my last question, Princeton, while it’s not in 

my district, is near my district, leads one of the five DOE quantum 

centers, and the university is leading in this field. Princeton’s work 

to expand the quantum information science ecosystem includes participation in an annual quantum career fair, quantum summer 

schools, internships, training for young researchers, and a unique 

summer research program in collaboration with IBM. 

I guess this is a question for Mr. Dabbar and Dr. Merzbacher. 

What recommendations will you have for these facilities and uni-
110 

versities to build out their workforce? How would you recommend 

that we engage with physics and engineering departments, as well 

as with computer science and algorithm development disciplines to 

build out this critical workforce? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman, I think, you know, one of the 

things that can be done is actually start taking a look at specific 

technologies and applications that are attributable to different departments at universities and try to drive those with the experts 

of those universities in terms of developing them. I’ll give you an 

example. There’s a workshop being prepared right now on energy 

deployment for quantum computation and systems. So taking for 

Princeton plasmas for fusion, taking a look at modeling for that is 

going to be one of the breakout workout sessions on energy and discovery for quantum, and that’s a direct example for Princeton. 

Mr. COLLINS. The gentleman’s time has expired. 

Mr. KEAN. Yes, thank you. I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. COLLINS. The Chair now recognizes Ms. Bonamici from Oregon for 5 minutes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony and 

your expertise. There’s a tremendous promise and potential with 

quantum technology, so thank you for being here. 

I was an enthusiastic co-sponsor of the original National Quantum Initiative Act, and I’m—I want to note that I’m very proud 

that Dr. Michael Raymer, who is from—a physics professor from 

my alma mater, University of Oregon, played a role in shaping the 

initiative, and the University of Oregon has continued, of course, 

to lead on the Pacific Northwest on this issue. So also an enthusiastic supporter of the CHIPS and Science Act, which, as you know, 

really is building on quantum technologies. 

So Dr. Rieffel, I really appreciated your excitement when you 

talked about how you don’t all understand everything, and we want 

people—the word that came to me was curiosity. We want people 

who are intellectually curious, I think, to get those people and get 

them into the field. But I want to ask you, you underscored the potential for quantum sensing tools, including gravitational mapping 

and laser cooled atoms to radically improve the precision of Earth 

measurements. I work a lot on climate issues, and I wonder at 

what scale do these technologies need to be deployed to effectively 

measure trends like sea level change, dwindling freshwater resources, for example? And how can these technologies improve climate modeling as we rapidly approach the global temperature rise 

of 1.5 degrees Celsius? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. We would like to see these widely deployed. As I 

mentioned, this gives much higher resolution, which enables us to 

understand these issues much better, and this affects all aspects of 

Earth science and potentially beyond. And I’ll also just mention 

that curiosity is a wonderful NASA word, and I think for young 

folks and older folks being able to address challenges while helping 

us investigate our curiosity will help bring the workforce to us. And 

it doesn’t have to just be young folks. It can be—a bunch of us had 

careers in something else because quantum information science 

didn’t exist—— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Didn’t exist, right. 
111 

Dr. RIEFFEL [continuing]. And so people should remember that 

they can come join this effort from their different expertise, including in areas that you mentioned. 

Ms. BONAMICI. I appreciate that. And as a Member of the Education and Workforce Committee, I’m always thinking about, you 

know, the students who are in school today, the jobs that will be 

available when they’re in the workforce might not exist today at 

all, so we have to spark that curiosity. 

So I’m going to address this to Dr. Edwards, but others can 

weigh in. I’m looking at policies, you know, of course, focusing on 

research and development, promoting public-private partnerships 

with—Representative Obernolte brought up, but also that workforce issue. So I want to hear about how we can encourage collaborations among private sector, industry, government, academia. 

But also, I want to follow up on the question that was asked 

about building the workforce and the diversity of the workforce. We 

have a lot of conversations about the importance of a diverse workforce and talent line when it comes to AI, for example. Why is that 

also important in quantum, and how can we spark that curiosity? 

I’ll start with Dr. Edwards, and others can weigh in. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Congresswoman, for this question. So, 

you know, quantum information science is so cross-disciplinary, 

and there’s a lack, as you recognize, of diversity across any measure of diversity in the fields that contribute, computer science, 

chemistry, physics, math, electrical engineering, material science, 

you name it. There is a persistent lack of diversity, which means 

we are leaving something on the table in terms of the American 

workforce. 

We—quantum information science is exciting, it sparks curiosity, 

and offers us perhaps a once-in-a-generation opportunity to try to 

begin—start at the beginning of a field to bake in opportunities and 

build out infrastructure in deserts across the country that don’t 

have necessarily access, and to really try to move the needle because when we look historically—if we ignore this until there is application in jobs, then the quantum workforce will look exactly the 

same as it does today, and we will be sitting here in 10, 20 years 

from now, and if I have the privilege, I’ll be saying the same thing, 

and we’ll be having the same conversation. 

Ms. BONAMICI. We hope we’ve invested. So one of the articles I 

was reading talked about the importance of interdisciplinary education, and I think you touched on that. And my time is about to 

expire. Does anybody want to briefly mention the importance of the 

public-private partnerships? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Well, I run one, so I totally want to foot stomp 

on that idea. I come from a background—my previous job was in 

the semiconductor space where I saw the magic that happened 

when industry and academia work together and the students had 

exposure while they were a student in industry, jobs, and experience. Mostly when you’re at a university, you’re seeing the university world, and if you can get industry engaged with the academic 

enterprise, you get those students seeing life outside of that bubble, 

and it’s hugely valuable for the students during their education, so 

I can—— 

Ms. BONAMICI. Absolutely. 
112 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Yes. 

Ms. BONAMICI. Thank you so much. I yield back. 

Mr. ISSA [presiding]. And I thank the gentlelady for her clever 

asking of the question with zero time remaining. That is a skilled 

professional. 

We go to the gentleman now from Illinois. 

Mr. CASTEN. I’m going to sit here and let the clock run out until 

I get to zero and then ask my question. 

Mr. ISSA. You may not be as lucky. 

Mr. CASTEN. Thank you all so much. The—Dr. Edwards, you had 

mentioned a little while ago about this question of how to get sort 

of high coherence qubits. And the—that facility you mentioned, 

Fermilab is just at the edge of my district, and those materials that 

come from foreign countries, I’ll come in there and I—it is, of 

course, true that we want to make sure that we preserve IP in the 

United States. I also think it’s important to remind ourselves periodically that we have these amazing national labs that attract people from all over the world. And I would say it’s actually a blessing 

that we have those international components there because those 

people who know how to make those things have no ways to deploy 

them but at our national labs. 

Mr. Dabbar, you and I were 4 years ago I think at the 

groundbreaking for the Integrated Engineering Research Center at 

Fermi, which is—I was just there a couple of weeks ago for the ribbon cutting. I would say that they have completed the project as 

you and I intended when we dug those ceremonial first shovels. 

But that’s a very intentionally international space, and so just let’s 

not lose sight of that. 

I want to stay on the high coherence, and you had raised the 

issue, but you—I think you had mentioned that Dr. Tahan was the 

one with the expertise, so I’ll turn to you for a moment. Can you 

give us a little understanding? Because every time I go to visit the 

folks at Fermi, there’s this question about how long can we hold 

these qubits in a predictable way, and what’s the progress? And 

could you give us just a little understanding of what—both what 

the progress has been in creating coherent qubits and what’s sort 

of the benchmark we should be watching that says, yes, once you 

can hold it for this amount of time, now we’ve really unlocked 

quantum computation in a reliable way? 

Dr. TAHAN. I can try. Thanks for the question. I was actually just 

at Fermilab earlier this year. It’s a really great team working on 

there just along these lines. If I try to simplify it in terms of the 

history, 20 years ago when I started, the field started. Coherence 

time of some—one of the best qubits was a nanosecond. OK. Now, 

people at Fermilab, others, are making 100 mils÷0 microsecond, 

even a millisecond, you know, so we’re talking about many orders 

of magnitude improvement. 

Where do we need to get to, right? That is a little bit of a more— 

so we’re seeing dramatic improvement every year, right? It’s a little 

bit more difficult question to say where we need to get to because 

it’s a holistic problem. Like when you’re trying to build a quantum 

computer, it’s not just one number that you’re trying to optimize. 

It’s a how hard is it to measure these qubits? How hard is it to control them? How fast can you do it? Because if you can do it faster, 
113 

it matters less how long they live, how much—or how good is your 

error correction? 

But nominally speaking, we’re approaching the time where you 

can start to devise systems that can—you can imagine one day 

could do something useful. I think this sort of millisecond timeframe is probably good enough to do errors—error correction and 

build a big system, a lot of qubits to run the algorithms that we’ve 

costed very well. The better we can make it, the easier—the better 

we can make the coherence, the easier, the smaller the system will 

be. So that’s why you can’t stop, right? You need to keep working 

on the disruptive new ideas because if you can make these 10, 100 

times better, then suddenly everything becomes much more feasible and much less engineering problems need to be solved. I hope 

that’s useful. 

Mr. CASTEN. Yes, and I guess what I always struggle with when 

I go to Fermi is, No. 1, they’re way smarter than me. That’s a challenge. But No. 2, there’s these sort of fundamental basic material 

science questions of how do you create surfaces with the appropriate atomic purity to keep these things going? And how much 

should we understand this as a—as still a basic science challenge 

versus engineering? Because, I mean, scale up to me is an engineering challenge. Every time I go visit the lab, it seems like 

they’re doing basic science. And I don’t say that judgmentally. I’m 

just—— 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, the way the way to think about it is—I mentioned coherence time is milliseconds, but if we talk about fidelity, 

like 99 times out of 100 the thing works or 99.9. We talk about the 

9s a lot. We need three 9s fidelity, four 9s fidelity. Each extra 9 

requires solving a whole bunch of material science and physics 

problems, so we can—and then you take the engineering that put 

them together to make a computer. So there’s always going to be 

in quantum computing scientific and real science problems to solve 

all the way toward what—till when we have a quantum computer, 

we just have to embrace that, just like in the transistor industry. 

Every new type of transistor needs—you know, thousands of people 

are working on material science problems to get that next generation. 

Mr. CASTEN. So I have 3 seconds, and I want to respect the Chair 

and not do what he just criticized, but, Mr. Dabbar, I’d love to follow up with you afterwards in writing. You and I talked 4 years 

ago about sort of pacing out these quantum networks and what 

that would take, and I would love some update from you. Maybe 

we can follow up offline about what it’s going to take to start building those out because it still seems revolutionary, and it still seems 

like tomorrow. 

Mr. DABBAR. I’m glad to, Congressman. Illinois and Chicago area 

has made dramatic progress since NQI was passed 5 years ago. It’s 

hard to describe it even in 5 minutes. 

Mr. CASTEN. I’ll take that offline. Thank you, yield back. 

Mr. ISSA. And now, the lesser questions will come from me. I 

don’t have a university in Illinois, but I do have the University of 

California, San Diego, and we’re proud of the work we do. Some of 

my questions, though, I think are going to be monetary. Mr. Secretary, I’ll start with you, and I want to give everyone a chance. 
114 

We talk a lot about diversity, we talk about spreading out, but then 

we also talk about the cost of this rollout. Now, we’re rolling out 

something that, quite frankly—you said it very well. It’s a mixture 

between lab and production. The Manhattan Project wasn’t done in 

every university in the country for a reason, not just the sensitivity 

of the material, but the need to concentrate the brain trust in that 

work. How can we see the—when we’re competing against China 

with over $15 billion of direct support and they clearly concentrate—even India concentrates among relatively few universities the best and the brightest—from a standpoint of the move 

forward? How can we balance that rather than spreading out our 

money and make sure that we are concentrating those fields of excellence? And then I have a follow up. 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So I think the Federal system 

does it well, and I think if we just kind of continue with that. You 

have entities like NSF that are very good at single researchers at 

a university doing a project, including in quantum, and having a 

broad base, much which was discussed, and then periodically, you 

have highly concentrated efforts because you do want to have some 

highly concentrated efforts to build something. So let me take 

southern California, Caltech, San Diego, University of San Diego, 

JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory), Santa Barbara, Google in Santa— 

also in Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara, as well as Google Santa 

Barbara, are at the precipice of building a quantum network. And 

they’re—if funding kind of fully comes through authorized underneath the CHIPS Act, I think that the prospects of doing that is 

relatively straightforward. 

So I think there’s a balance, right, between the different sort of 

systems, individual principal investigators and let’s go build some 

systems. And I think in this area we’re ready, including southern 

California. 

Mr. ISSA. OK. And I saw a lot of head shaking, so usually, it’s 

a good sign. 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, I agree. This has to be an ’’and,’’ not an ’’or.’’ 

You know, we cannot give up our scientific excellence by expanding. We need to also expand. But I think in terms of expanding 

across the country, we’re really talking about not these huge mega 

efforts actually to build and focus developed systems integration, 

solve these system integration challenges, but developing smaller 

systems that can be used to train up the talent for those people 

that can contribute to those big effects. 

Mr. ISSA. OK. 

Dr. TAHAN. [inaudible] work quite well. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, then perhaps you can be my visionary or others 

on my follow up question. Going back generations of computers, 

when I was in college, you know, we put paper into NCR 500’s. 

We—you know, we wrote our programs. We were learning, but we 

were learning at a very rudimentary level. By the time I was a 

lieutenant running a DEC facility, we were a hub for all kinds of 

places because our processing capability was available through 

those high speed 2400 baud super dedicated lines of the day. But 

ultimately, it didn’t matter what the connection was. They had access to our large capability that we had within a very expensive facility. That hybrid system, which eventually became the internet 
115 

where universities had access to what was a military facility and 

vice versa, we could reach out to them for development. How do we 

take quantum, get the most bang for the buck by leveraging what 

one might call hybrid, the existing technology, the existing computers that can help reach those but not overburden them or at 

least maximize the benefit? 

Dr. TAHAN. Yes, well, we are very fortunate in our field that the 

internet already exists, that cloud computers already exist. 

Mr. ISSA. I’d heard that. 

Dr. TAHAN. So people, you know, have been hooking up their 

quantum computers to the internet providing access. And the 

QUEST, you know, bill that was authorized in the Science Act 

would expand that access to more subject matter experts who actually are experts in chemistry materials. We need to bring the domain experts to be able to use those machines across the country. 

Mr. ISSA. And so—— 

Dr. TAHAN. Anything we can do to do that would be better. 

Mr. ISSA. Yes, my follow up question for the record now will be 

for each of you. If you could give the Committee, myself as much 

of your vision of how we leverage these areas of excellence, in other 

words, where we invest in research facilities but where we invest 

in facilities that can be that hub-and-spoke to the rest of the universities so that no young, bright mind will be left without the ability to reach out beyond? If you’re sitting at Kent State University, 

you’re likely not to be the hub, but if you can have the spoke that 

leads to that hub, wherever it is. So if you could give me your vision because our investment might best be in making those tentacles much better than they are today. I am concerned that we all 

take credit for the internet, but the reality is, what have we done 

to make it better at reaching out to this new quantum world that 

we’re going to be in? So if you would each give that for the record, 

I would appreciate it. 

And with that, I go to the gentlelady, Ms. McCollum from Virginia. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. 

Recently, I was able to visit the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility in Virginia, which, as you know, conducts 

groundbreaking nuclear and particle physics research. Recently, 

their engineers were able to use an innovative photon detection 

system to solve challenges in quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum cryptography, which is one example of the potential for quantum information science to help us solve previously 

unsolvable problems and better understand the fundamental building blocks of matter. So I look forward to hearing more from you 

today and in the future about how Congress can support the advancement of quantum information science on behalf of society. 

But my first question is, you know, computational models are essential to our understanding of the mechanisms driving climate 

change and the impact of efforts to mitigate climate change. These 

models are highly complex and computationally demanding, making climate modeling an ideal application for quantum computing. 

So, Dr. Rieffel, could you discuss how Congress can support the development of quantum computing for climate applications in poten-
116 

tial—in a potential National Quantum Initiative Act reauthorization? 

Dr. RIEFFEL. Thank you. Yes, there are many computational 

challenges in climate and Earth science generally, and quantum 

computing has the potential to really affect how quickly we can 

compute those things, reduce the energy with which we can compute those things. We also have quantum sensing, which can help 

us understand better ice, oceans, landmass, and changes. So the 

applications in those areas are broad, and to tie in with some of 

what we’ve talked about before, bringing in folks who have expertise in those areas and tying them tightly with the folks who have 

expertise in the quantum computing area and really understanding 

what really specifically are the computational challenges in your 

areas that will really make the difference. And we’re working on 

that at NASA, but I think more broadly, having those computational challenges would be great. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. The advances in quantum computing put our traditional forms of encryption at risk so—with serious national security implications. And my understanding is that 

some agencies like NIST are already working to develop secure 

post-quantum encryption techniques. So, Dr. Tahan, could you 

speak to OSTP’s work to address the national security risks posed 

by quantum computing and what support you need from Congress? 

Dr. TAHAN. Thank you, Congresswoman. I’ll just start by saying 

I went to William and Mary, and I know Jefferson Lab quite well. 

We’ve been doing a lot to support the transition to post-quantum 

cryptography. Probably the most important thing that has happened in that space in the last year is the President signed a 

NASA security memorandum, NSM–10, on quantum computing, 

which lays out clear objectives for the agencies to, in a timely and 

equitable manner, move the whole Nation to quantum cryptography. So it’s going to be expensive to upgrade all the routers, to 

understand what needs to be upgraded not only in the Federal 

Government, but also in our small businesses, in companies 

across—States across the country. To do that, we need to know 

what we need to do. So first and foremost, you know, this process 

included OMB (Office of Management and Budget) and included 

the agencies like NIST, DOD that that have significant equities to 

make that process. And that’s being run out of National Security 

Council, and we could help facilitate interactions with them if you 

want to know more. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you. And in the time left, providing students with the hands-on quantum research experience is expensive, 

and availability is limited at many institutions if we just—as we’ve 

discussed, including many HBCUs (historically Black colleges and 

universities) and minority-serving institutions (MSIs). So, Dr. Edwards, how can we ensure that all students interested in quantumrelated fields have opportunities to access experimental training, 

cutting-edge facilities, and advanced instrumentation? 

Dr. EDWARDS. Thank you, Congresswoman, for that question. 

You know, representation is so important, and participation in this 

is critical toward closing wealth gaps in many cases, particularly 

for students at underrepresented groups. I think that I want to acknowledge the efforts of DOE RENEW (Reaching a New Energy 
117 

Sciences Workforce) program and NSF ExpandQISE (Expanding 

Capacity in Quantum Information Science and Engineering) as initially trying to address this at universities and colleges. It’s a complex problem that I’d be happy to provide more in writing. But in 

short, I will say that, right now, there are early stage activities and 

initial stage modular curriculum, but we’ll need to explore more 

models out there to find successful ways, particularly because our 

MSIs, HSIs (Hispanic-serving institutions), community colleges, 

and—you know, are primarily undergraduate institutions that have 

professors that are typically tasked with a lot of teaching. And they 

play an outsized role and a lifeline to their students. And by engaging them in this and providing research funds, we want to make 

sure we don’t risk taking them away from their students and 

breaking that lifeline. 

So I’d like to provide more in writing if that’s OK on this complex 

question and ideas on how the NQI Act can help move this forward. 

Ms. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back. 

Mr. BAIRD [presiding]. The gentlelady yields back, and now we 

go to New York with Representative Williams, please. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank—— 

Mr. BAIRD. You have 5 minutes. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I bring you greetings 

from my Air Force Research Lab in Rome, New York. In our district, we’re very proud of that. And Dr. Michael Hayduk says hello 

to many of you that you’ve worked with in the past. 

So, yes, I just want to talk about AFRL and the work that the 

Air Force is doing, but I’ll draw it to something I’d ask for your insight into. AFRL is doing a lot of active R&D programs in quantum 

information science and principally around clocks, sensing, communications, and computing, much of what has been discussed here 

today. This, you know, groundbreaking research is to support the 

Air Force and the Space Force in critical issues related to our national defense. And they also have spent a lot of effort around private-public partnerships around the end of our center and working 

together with academic startups, as well as the Department of Defense. It’s an excellent model, and I’m interested to see particularly 

how we can pull these things together. 

As I think about the funding really for anything but related to 

the government but specifically around quantum science is there’s 

public funding like we’ve discussed for the Air Force or for basic 

research. There is public-private partnerships. The NQI seems to 

be well-suited to that and successful. And there’s also, of course, a 

lot of private funding that’s taken place. I come out of the tech industry, so I’m always interested in what’s happening in Silicon Valley and other areas in these fundamental areas. 

But my question—and, Mr. Secretary, I’ll focus in on you just because you and I have spoken about this previously. You know, how 

can DOD-funded efforts interact with NQIA, NIST, NSF, you know, 

any of these kinds of funded ventures? How can they interact? Is 

there things that we can do better? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. So I think, subject to your Committee of jurisdiction and being able to put it into a bill, I think 

being very explicit in a line item authorizing between DOD and 

the—you know, the non-050, so to speak, agencies, the non-DOD 
118 

agencies and make it really explicit that they could work together 

because sometimes Federal agencies are—get worried, and sometimes staffers say that, you know, we’re not doing the right thing 

because it’s not in the bill. 

But I think if you explicitly do that, let me say one thing about 

AFRL. AFRL is part of a group in New York. Upstate New York 

is amazing on this topic. AFRL has been the leader, as you said, 

on many aspects that you just mentioned, but they’re part of the 

group looking to make the bid for the CHIPS Act, DOE-run New 

York quantum network. And so there is already cooperation going 

on between AFRL and the nonmilitary side. And I think making 

it clear that that’s OK I think would be good. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Great. Anyone else want to add to that? 

Dr. TAHAN. I’ll just say it was up at AFRL Rome last year. It’s 

an amazing place, and I think it’s a really great model for everything that we’ve been talking about today, research security versus 

fundamental research, public research versus private companies 

being involved. We welcome the DOD being, you know, a more formal member in the NQI, including the centers. The National Defense Authorization Acts of ’20 and ’21 and ’22, you know, designated—allowed DOD to designate some of those centers as quantum information science centers, but anything more you can do to 

make that more formal I think would be very welcome. 

Mr. WILLIAMS. Great. Well, thank you. I just want to point out 

that Secretary Dabbar and I served on submarines contemporarily, 

we did not overlap in our squadron but appreciate your service. 

And it’s not too many times we get shipmates from submarines in 

the same place without throwing things at each other. So anyway, 

I’m glad you’re here, and I yield back the remainder of my time. 

Thank you. 

Mr. BAIRD. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. And now we 

go to Pennsylvania with Ms. Lee. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all so much 

for your time and your testimony today. 

Quantum science conceptually is very difficult for anyone to wrap 

their heads around, or maybe just me. I’ll speak for me, and, no 

less, our constituents. However, what I do understand is that quantum technology has the potential to vastly improve the quality of 

life of folks in my district and across various fields. In my district, 

the Pittsburgh Quantum Initiative combines expertise across 

Duquesne University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Carnegie 

Mellon in developing new materials, computational science, engineering, and physics to advance quantum computing. Quantum 

computing R&D can and will have a profound impact on industries 

such as finance and logistics. Investing in quantum sensor R&D 

will support medical imaging and drug discovery for my district’s 

healthcare workers and help bring cleaner air and water to the 

western Pennsylvania region through precision environmental 

monitoring. 

While this field is still looking toward the future, our commitments to date supporting further research and development of 

quantum technology will improve the stability, reliability in quantum systems to make them more practical and commercially viable 

for day-to-day applications. 
119 

So to anyone, we joked in my office that this hearing will be a 

great way to talk about Marvel’s Ant-Man movies and if we’re closer to making ant suits. We are admittedly a very Gen Z and Millennial office. That would, of course, we think, be true American 

leadership. Realistically, though, why is American quantum leadership an issue that should capture the minds of my constituents in 

western Pennsylvania, and what makes something as complex as 

quantum important to everyday American people? 

Dr. MERZBACHER. I’ll just start by reminding all of us that we 

have actually probably no idea of the big killer app that this technology is going to make possible if you sort of think back or try to 

put yourself in, you know, 50 years ago and imagine the technology 

that we have. So the potential is there. We can kind of imagine 

some of it, but it’s really hard to under—or overestimate how important it’s going to be. We can start where we are now, and there 

are even systems that can do small problems that are useful. How 

it’s going to play out going forward is really hard to predict, but 

we can sort of envision that it’s going to solve these problems that 

are just outside of where computers today can even touch. And so 

it’s exciting because it’s enabling, and I think conveying that to 

people—the problems that are likely to be solved near term or 

maybe sort of business problems that are optimizing, you know, financial portfolios or speeding up drug discovery, those are really 

important, and I think people appreciate them, but there’s probably 

a huge universe of applications that we don’t—— 

Ms. LEE. We haven’t even touched yet. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. Yes. 

Ms. LEE. I understand. Mr. Dabbar, what role can we look to see 

quantum research and technology play in mitigating the multifaceted effects of climate change like air and water pollution? 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congresswoman. So one of the interesting 

pieces of technology I’ve seen about quantum sensing and about the 

environment is that I know some people who are doing quantum 

sensors to more accurately image cloud systems and weather fronts 

as they’re about to come through, and they could very, very accurately figure out how much rain is about to hit. And, as a result 

of that, they could figure out when to plant. And there’s places in 

Egypt and Indonesia and applicable in America of knowing exactly 

when to plant more—like better, you could increase your yields for 

your food. You’re going to have a better kind of impact by significant effects. And that’s just like one example of looking at the environment, better sensing, and actually taking action as a result of 

that. 

Ms. LEE. Thank you. Is there an opportunity to leverage the new 

TIP Directorate at NSF to build partnerships between industry and 

academia for these various purposes? 

Dr. TAHAN. Absolutely. I mean, I think that’s a tremendous opportunity in the Science Act, and if it’s properly funded, they can 

really try to bring some of these science experiments to actual useful society. I mean, that’s really the goal of that. So if we can make 

that happen, it would really be transformative. 

Ms. LEE. I thank you all so much for your time talking to those 

of us who are not experts in this field and as we are trying to figure out what our role is in support and supporting this particular 
120 

field. Thank you for your patience, and I’m certain that we will 

continue all these conversations as we are looking into these new 

fields of discovery and figuring out how we can make life better for 

all of our constituents. Thank you, and I yield back. 

Mr. BAIRD. The gentlelady yields back, and you can relax, witnesses. They tell me that I’m the last one to ask questions, and 

they aren’t really tough, so I think you’ll be OK. Is that true? Yes, 

OK. 

Anyway, my—you know, I come from a district in agriculture, 

west central Indiana, and so I’m very interested, similar to some 

of the questions that she asked, but I’m really interested in how 

well quantum computing deals with agriculture. You know, we 

have planters today that are very precision-oriented, put the seeds 

exactly where we want. We have harvesters or combines that you 

go to the end of the field, you hit an auto button, and it’ll turn 

around and go back. We have sprayers that can control—you know, 

you put on less spray, you do it more efficiently. And we even got 

drones that we can look over the fields with. We’ve got robots that 

we can harvest strawberries and so on with. 

My point is, can you explain to me, Mr. Dabbar—I am just going 

to start with you—briefly how we’re using these new technologies 

in quantum that are working to help agriculture? And you mentioned that a little bit ago, so—— 

Mr. DABBAR. Yes, Congressman. In addition to the water and 

planting point, which I think can absolutely be implemented with 

quantum sensing and understanding weather fronts coming 

through, let me talk to you about fertilizer. So one other big thing 

about high-performance computing is being able to design from a 

chemistry point of view different products in a much more tailored 

fashion, much more efficiently, producing it more efficiently, less 

emissions, so designer—you know, designing of different types of 

chemicals, and so in this case, fertilizers is a big prospect. It has— 

high-performance computers with current computing capacity has 

been very valuable, but using computational chemistry to come up 

with what’s next at a much more powerful level, much more detailed has a great prospect. And we’re looking at having that discussion at a workshop here in the fall. 

Mr. BAIRD. You know, I want to emphasize what you just mentioned, the ability—when we had the fertilizer shortage in the last 

year or so, precision agriculture, and you mentioned being able to— 

having the equipment and the technology, which includes the computer capability, to know where to place—you know, when you got 

soils information and you know what that seed needs and so you 

can strategically place those nutrients, and fertilizer is one of them. 

So anyone else have a comment in that regard? 

Dr. EDWARDS. Yes, I’d be happy to add—you know, underscore 

some of those things and add a little more detail. You know, I’m 

just over the border in Illinois, and—not too far. 

Mr. BAIRD. I know where you’re at. 

Dr. EDWARDS. Not too far at all. There’s a lot of farmland there, 

too. And I think that, you know, in the near term everything you 

just talked about, I bet, relies on some of the advancements in GPS 

and sensing that are—either happened in the latter part of the 

20th century or are happening on the ground now. And so I have 
121 

no doubt that that kind of navigation element will play a critical 

role. We’re a ways off yet from having—being able to address the 

fertilizer problem in terms of the scale that we were talking about 

earlier, to go from 100 qubits to however many it’s going to take. 

And so I think in the near term, continuing investment in hybrid 

approaches to both quantum computing but other architectures is 

critical to see applications on the ground in ag tech and other areas 

that are so critical toward that region of the country. 

Dr. RIEFFEL. I’ll also add that I believe a lot of the data that you 

use in agriculture comes from NASA, and that while we’ll continue 

with conventional technologies, quantum sensing and quantum 

computing can increase both the data rate and the data processing 

in ways that we can’t even imagine how that will end up affecting 

things. 

Dr. MERZBACHER. And I’ll just add from the industry perspective 

that in order for these technologies to go from being research 

projects to used in the field, there’s a lot of industry or private sector players in that chain, and so companies like the big companies 

that are making the chemicals, that are making the equipment, 

that are making the software that’s going to be run on the combines and drones and everything else, they all need to understand 

this is coming, and they need to be thinking about how to integrate 

it into those products. And so the users, the—what I call the quantum takers, not just the quantum makers, but the takers need to 

be learning about this technology, too, so that they can put it in 

the hands of the farmers at the end of the day. 

Mr. BAIRD. Anyone else? I would just say I want to thank the 

witnesses for being here. Your input is extremely important to us 

to try to make decisions. And, you know, when you talk about what 

we were talking in this Committee hearing, we’re really trying to 

feed the world, and we’re all responsible for trying to make those 

efforts. 

And so I just want to thank all of you for being here, and your 

testimony was extremely important to the Members of this Committee. The record will remain open for 10 days for additional comments and written questions from the Members. 

And so this hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:54 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(123) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
124 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Charles Tahan 
125 
126 
127 
128 
129 

Responses by the Honorable Paul Dabbar 
130 
131 
132 

Responses by Dr. Eleanor G. Rieffel 
133 
134 
135 
136 
137 
138 
139 

Responses by Dr. Celia Merzbacher 
140 
141 
142 
143 
144 
145 

Responses by Dr. Emily Edwards 
146 
147 
148 
149 
150 
151 
152 
153 

(155) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
156 

LETTER SUBMITTED BY REPRESENTATIVE FRANK LUCAS
157 
158 
159 
160 
161 

Æ