Manhattan. Apollo. The defining projects of American power each share one trait: urgency met with overwhelming national will. Recently, Washington signaled it’s time again.
Quantum technology is not arriving in some distant future, it is here. Major announcements in the last week buoy this assessment. On Nov. 24, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order unveiling the Genesis Mission — a national effort to leverage artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and super-computing to turbocharge the American science and technology engine. On Nov. 17, a senior defense official announced six critical technology areas essential to future American military superiority. Quantum computing, and the capabilities such systems will unlock, represent two of these areas.
In this series, we have made the case for American quantum leadership. We outlined the imperative in “America’s Quantum Moment,” mapped the vulnerabilities in “The Supply Chain Chokepoints in Quantum,” and examined the policy tools available in our third installment, “Igniting the American Quantum Economy.” As noted throughout, we’re not disinterested observers: One of us is an active quantum scientist and technologist, and an investor at deep-technology fund DCVC with portfolio companies in this space. We both regularly engage with companies across the quantum stack, dual-use technology, materials and manufacturing, space and defense, among others.
