Industry witnesses urge federal purchases, testbeds and funding to move quantum from lab to market
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Summary
Executives from QEDC, Google, PsiQuantum and Microsoft told the House Science Committee that government procurement, shared fabrication and prototyping infrastructure, and targeted follow-on funding would accelerate commercialization of quantum technologies and attract private capital.
Industry and consortium witnesses told the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that the federal government can accelerate quantum commercialization by expanding access to testbeds, serving as an early customer, and supporting follow-on prototyping funding.
Celia Mertzbacher, executive director of the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QEDC), told lawmakers that small- and mid-sized companies most frequently identify access to customers and infrastructure as top barriers. "Markets are small, and frankly, the killer app has not yet been identified," she said, urging modest government commitments to buy systems that meet specifications and thereby "unleash private capital."
Witnesses recommended several concrete mechanisms. Mertzbacher cited reauthorizing and expanding SBIR-like seed funding and suggested follow-on prototyping through Other Transaction Authorities (OTAs) modeled on the National Spectrum Consortium. She also recommended increased access to shared fabrication, characterization, and testing facilities so companies can prototype and mature products without building dedicated fabs.
Karina Chow, director and chief operating officer at Google Quantum AI, described Google’s fabrications in Santa Barbara and urged continued federal investment in research and test infrastructure that helped industry and academia collaborate on Josephson junction–based superconducting qubits. "The National Quantum Initiative has helped to develop this technology and its reauthorization is critical to continued US leadership," Chow said.
Pete Shadbolt, cofounder and chief scientific officer at PsiQuantum, described a manufacturing strategy that leverages existing high-volume semiconductor supply chains and reported that his company makes wafers at GlobalFoundries Fab 8 in Upstate New York and will scale toward mass production. He and other witnesses pushed for federal programs to support onshoring of key components and to provide early-purchase commitments so suppliers can achieve scale.
The witnesses did not request a single specific procurement vehicle; instead they proposed a menu of options: advanced market commitments for validated systems, federal purchases of shared prototyping equipment placed at universities or regional hubs, and continued use of SBIR/STTR with new follow-on options. Committee members asked staff and witnesses about administrative details and potential budget implications; no formal procurement authority or statutory language was adopted at the hearing.
