DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, which last week graduated 11 companies to stage B of the program, could be as pivotal to that technology as DARPA was to the internet, global positioning satellite, and autonomous vehicles. That’s according to a new column by Dr. Prineha Narang, a quantum researcher, and Joshua Levine, a research fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation.
While DARPA isn’t making a quantum computer, it has set itself up as the ultimate judge of whether quantum technology is hype or reality. In order to advance through the different stages of the benchmarking program, companies must prove their technology is feasible.
It’s run by Dr. Joe Altepeter, who calls himself the “chief quantum skeptic.” This scientific bootcamp is exactly what the industry needed, Narang and Levine write.
Narang told Semafor in an email that the program has been driving investor interest in quantum. “Some investors were waiting for this announcement to write term sheets,” she wrote.