Insights from Tommaso Macri following the 2025 PEARC conference:

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In 2018, the United States signaled serious intent with the National Quantum Initiative Act (NQI), aligning federal agencies and catalyzing research, centers, and early workforce programs. But in 2023, the Act lapsed without renewal or replacement. That pause comes just as quantum technology is shifting from lab demos toward integration with high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure—precisely the moment when steady policy and coordinated investment matter most.

While the U.S. policy framework drifts, Europe has taken a sharply different path. The European Quantum Strategy with the upcoming Quantum Act expected in 2026 and related national programs are investing billions in a top-down strategy that ties together infrastructure, talent pipelines, and application development. Their goal is not just scientific excellence, but economic and technological sovereignty in quantum computing. In practical terms, that means colocating quantum processors with supercomputers, building unified software stacks, and funding the unglamorous connective tissue—standards, benchmarks, scheduling, and visualization tools—that makes hybrid quantum-classical computing usable for scientists.

The U.S. still leads in many areas of quantum science and entrepreneurship, but leadership without coordination risks fragmentation. At the PEARC’25 2^nd Workshop on Broadly Accessible Quantum Computing, researchers and HPC practitioners converged on a consistent theme: progress now hinges as much on integration, interoperability, and workforce as it does on qubit breakthroughs. Without predictable federal direction, universities, national labs, and supercomputing centers hesitate to plan multi-year deployments, and industry lacks clear signals about shared priorities.

Reauthorizing the NQI—or replacing it with a broader, more pragmatic framework—should be the starting point. But simply turning the lights back on isn’t enough. A modernized national strategy must recognize that quantum will scale through integration with existing HPC, not in isolation. It must fund the foundations that enable broad access, not just bespoke experiments. And it must build a workforce that spans technicians, control engineers, software developers, and domain scientists.

Here are five priorities to anchor that reboot:

1.     Modular infrastructure investment. Fund hybrid quantum-HPC testbeds at supercomputing centers, with clear pathways for incremental adoption—much like the early GPU era—so researchers can offload targeted subroutines while keeping most workloads classical.

2.     Open standards and interoperability. Support common APIs, portable intermediate representations, and community benchmarks that let teams move across hardware modalities and reduce vendor lock-in.

3.     Public-private co-design. Create programs that pair industry, academia, and federal labs to mature algorithms, compilers, and schedulers alongside hardware—ensuring real-world performance is validated and openly understood.

4.     Workforce alignment. Expand credentialed pathways and technician training through community colleges and minority-serving institutions, and align curricula around core competencies (linear algebra, optimization, control systems) needed for hybrid workflows.

5.     International quantum diplomacy. Coordinate with allies to harmonize standards, share open infrastructure, and secure supply chains, competing where appropriate while collaborating on pre-competitive foundations.

The United States retains extraordinary strengths: deep scientific talent, vibrant startups, world-class supercomputing, and a history of translating research into scaled platforms. But talent alone won’t carry the next phase. Integration, repeatability, and accessibility are policy challenges as much as technical ones. A renewed national strategy—focused on modular infrastructure, open standards, co-design, and workforce—would provide the clarity and staying power the field now requires.

Quantum will not replace classical computing, but in select domains it will redefine what is computationally feasible. If the U.S. wants to lead that future, it must act with coordination and conviction—now.

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