Inside a warehouse turned laboratory in suburban Maryland, a team of theoretical physicists and engineers is racing to build a quantum processor powerful enough to surpass the most advanced computers on Earth.
These scientists have a lofty goal: They want to rapidly accelerate a cure for cancer. But, if they’re successful, the quantum computers they create could also upend online security and pose a threat to personal data, financial institutions and even national security.
The scientists hope to use quantum mechanics to craft a new type of computer that can perform tasks impossible to do with today’s classical computers, like modeling complex chemical reactions between new drugs and cancer cells long before the treatments ever go to human trials. Doing so could speed up the development of new medicines by telling researchers which compounds have the best chance of success before they start testing, eliminating unlikely candidates and fast-tracking the best contenders.
Unlike artificial intelligence, which became ubiquitous almost overnight after the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, quantum computers would create a completely new computing infrastructure — one that could even more profoundly change the modern world.
The team at the IonQ facility in College Park, Maryland, is competing against scientists in Japan, Korea, Britain, Texas, New Mexico, Illinois, Massachusetts and elsewhere around the world.
State officials see the technological race as a chance to grow Maryland’s economy and lessen its reliance on the federal government. Gov. Wes Moore (D), who calls quantum computing a “lighthouse industry” for Maryland, has launched a $1 billion-plus effort to create a local industry hub.
But that investment is a bet — one that might not pay off for years, and that carries both financial and real-world dangers.
New computers, new risks
Quantum computers are an entirely new kind of technology, which excels where classical computers often struggle the most: analyzing incredibly complex systems affected by multiple probabilities. By using ideas from quantum physics, they may one day be able to answer impossibly complicated questions that classical computers simply cannot address.
One of the key differences between your laptop at home and a quantum computer is that one uses bits and the other uses qubits, or quantum bits.
Classical computers use bits to record massive amounts of data. Each bit can have a single value — either 0 or 1 — and each bit added to a processor makes the computer more powerful. One hundred bits are 100 times more powerful than one.
A quantum computer’s qubit packs an even greater punch.
For each qubit added to a quantum processor, the computer’s power grows exponentially. A single qubit can hold a superposition value of 0 and 1 at the same time. Two qubits can make four variations of those values (0 and 0, 0 and 1, 1 and 0, 1 and 1). Three qubits can have eight different combinations. Just 10 qubits generates 1,024 permutations — already more than 500 times as powerful as a single qubit.
To make a qubit, IonQ’s scientists strip an electron from the outermost shell of an ytterbium atom and use a magnet to pull the now-charged particle into an ion trap. That ytterbium ion becomes one qubit inside a quantum processor. Line up enough of those qubits inside the ion trap, and the processor gains perhaps enough power to fundamentally change the world.
Peter Chapman, executive chair and chairman of the board of IonQ, has been traveling the globe to convince potential partners that the Maryland-based company’s trapped-ion quantum computer has the best shot at commercial success. He has also been thinking about the good, and the bad, that the nascent industry could accomplish.
A successful quantum processor could eventually gain enough computing power to model unfathomably complex chemical reactions. It could also save power: While existing supercomputers often reside in data centers that suck up power, Chapman said, some quantum computers can run plugged into normal wall outlets and could save a lot of electricity by absorbing some of the work done by traditional processors. And quantum computers could optimize all kinds of thorny business operations, such as delivering packages along the most efficient route, or finding the cheapest way to build a car.
But there’s also a worrisome risk.
A powerful quantum computer could crack the encryption technology that protects bank accounts, government databases, medical records and virtually every other piece of sensitive data that exists in a digital form. In the simplest terms, encryption works by scrambling data into a secret code that can be unlocked only with the right key, or password. To break in, a classical computer would have to test each potential password individually, a gargantuan and prohibitively time-consuming task. A powerful quantum computer could test huge numbers of potential passwords all at once, allowing it to crack that code and break into accounts without permission in a matter of minutes.
Broken encryption could also create new military threats, Chapman said. “It’s silly to fire a missile at a plane over the Strait of Taiwan because, if I can break encryption, I can just log into the plane and shut down the engines,” he said. “It’s a much cheaper method.”
Chapman said IonQ and its partners in Maryland are also focused on creating tools to guard against those risks. The company is investing in ideas like a quantum internet and unbreakable codes that would defend against the potential threats posed by quantum computing.
“We’re building these things to solve cancer, not create problems,” Chapman said. “We need to provide the solutions that protect the world from the technology that we’re developing.”
Maryland also wants to win this race, seeing the quantum industry as a way to free the state’s economy from a dependency on federal spending that, recently, has led to severe budget shortages.
The state has secured more than $1 billion in state, federal and private funding for a “Capital of Quantum” initiative to propel quantum research centered on the University of Maryland’s Discovery District, located near the IonQ facility in College Park. The hope is that Maryland can become the world’s premier hub for the industry, much like Silicon Valley is for tech.
“The future of wealth creation is quantum,” Moore said last fall during a keynote speech at the Quantum World Congress in Northern Virginia. “The future of economic prosperity is quantum. And that’s why, in the state of Maryland, we’re focused on becoming the capital of quantum.”
So far, tech companies appear to agree.
In September, Microsoft announced plans to join the Discovery District, adding a formidable player to the state’s quantum race.
Charles Tahan, a partner in Microsoft Quantum, said that the company is trying to build the world’s best quantum computer and that Maryland stuck out as a place with the right investment, people and long-term vision to accomplish that goal.
“It really requires a lot of expertise. We need the best talent, the best technologies — from the best refrigerators to the best quantum chips to the best software,” he said.
The state is already home to plenty of researchers and engineers. It also boasts proximity to key government agencies, such as the National Security Agency, NASA, the Department of Energy and the Defense Department, that are likely to become some of quantum’s biggest customers, Tahan added.
Of course, Maryland isn’t winning every leg of the quantum race. Even IonQ, the state’s homegrown quantum venture, decided last year to strike a $22 million deal to open a new quantum computing and networking hub in Chattanooga, Tennessee, rather than in Maryland. Republicans faulted Moore and the Democrats who control state politics for making Maryland less attractive to the tech industry by instituting a new “tech tax” that they say strains the very industries the governor hopes to grow.
“A Maryland-headquartered company has looked at the numbers, looked at the climate and said, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” Senate Minority Leader Stephen S. Hershey Jr. (R-Queen Anne’s) said shortly after IonQ announced the Tennessee facility. “Maryland offered special treatment, and they still chose Tennessee. That tells you everything you need to know about how unfriendly we’ve become to innovation and investment.”
Moore has continued to invest in and boost quantum as a way to increase the state’s economic competitiveness.
The governor’s proposed 2027 budget includes $74 million in investments in quantum computing, with $20 million to build a new IonQ headquarters in College Park. The money will also support the University of Maryland’s Quantum Startup Foundry and quantum test beds, the creation of a “Deep Tech Facility” in the Discovery District, and recruitment efforts in Prince George’s County to bring faculty experts to the University of Maryland and the Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, known as ARLIS.
A not-so-distant future
The turnaround on Maryland’s investment is unclear.
Many believe that a powerful quantum computer is still at least a decade, if not two, away from realization. Not only does a quantum computer have to work, it has to surpass the abilities of a classical computer to be truly useful, and profitable.
Classical computers are also improving every day. If classical computers and quantum computers were in a race to Mars, classical computers would already be passing the moon, while quantum computers have not left Earth. But quantum computing power can grow exponentially, meaning quantum computers could catch up to classical computers very quickly.
Although quantum computing still has a long way to go before it reaches the moon, Chapman of IonQ said he believes that a quantum future is very close at hand. He said he expects quantum to become popular very quickly, the same way artificial intelligence did.
“Before ChatGPT, there were a lot of people who said AI is never going to happen,” Chapman said. “And then, overnight, it just appeared. And the world wasn’t ready.”
When OpenAI launched ChatGPT just three years ago, the technology had many doubters. Now, lawmakers are scrambling to understand and regulate AI. Businesses are rushing to adopt the new technology. And many people are using AI in their daily lives, to draft emails, write code and even to find companionship. The technology is seemingly everywhere.
Chapman sees a similar future for quantum computing.
“I think quantum is going to come faster than anyone could possibly have predicted, and it will shock the world,” he said. “One day, everyone will suddenly wake up and realize, ‘Wow, we just cured cancer using a quantum computer, and I didn’t even know they existed.’”
How far off is “one day”?
“I think it’s two or two and a half years,” Chapman said.
Editing by Antonio Olivo and Tara McCarty. Design editing by Christine Ashack. Copy editing by Jennifer Morehead.
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