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Google didn’t take funding from the Trump administration for quantum computing because of “conditions” that would’ve prevented the tech giant from moving as quickly as it would like, an executive said Wednesday.
The US government last month announced $2 billion in grants and investments across nine quantum companies, including IBM and PsiQuantum, in a bid to bolster domestic development and take on China in quantum.
“In this one specific case, I think there were various conditions that came with the funding,” Charina Chou, chief operating officer at Google Quantum AI, said at the Semafor Tech summit in San Francisco. Google wants “to move as quickly as we can to a quantum computer,” and is working with the US government in “other ways,” she said.
PsiQuantum co-founder Pete Shadbolt, a recipient of the US funding, said it was “really natural” for the US government to invest in the sector because of quantum’s “profound geopolitical implications. It has national security implications.”
“I try to spend as much time as I can building the quantum computer, but I do run around Washington,” he said of the importance of working with the US government.
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Google’s Chou said the government “can do more” to invest in and support the sector, and that Google wants to see “increased funding for basic research” — the principles that form the basis for more advanced quantum work.
Many of the institutions that do that basic research are labs around the country that Google partners with. Chou said she is seeing “some challenges in that realm” when it comes to recruiting academics from overseas, as the Trump administration tightens immigration and visa policies.
She said Google hasn’t hit any major snags with recruitment, but “the climate is challenging.”
“We’re going to need to get the best talent from all over the world to make this technology possible, Chou added, pegging talent and investment to the country’s race with China to build quantum computers. China “is a formidable competitor. There’s absolutely no question about that.”