The US Department of Homeland Security's chief scientist said the United States is falling behind China in quantum networking even as it holds a lead in quantum computing.
"We're losing in the quantum network space, winning in the quantum compute, winning in the infrastructure, breaking even probably right now in the personnel space," said Sam Howerton, chief scientist at DHS, at an event hosted this month in Washington by quantum networking company Qunnect Inc.
Howerton said China's advantage comes less from innovation than from integration. Chinese programs are vertically and horizontally integrated and are demonstrating operational quantum networking capability that the US cannot currently match, he said, while the US retains the edge in research and in quantum computing.
He also pointed to a workforce gap, saying the country is enrolling fewer doctoral students in the relevant fields than it needs, a shortfall he described as a deficit for the next 10 to 20 years.
The warning comes at a moment when federal quantum policy is expanding beyond computing. The ARPA-E held the kickoff last week for QC3, a $37 million initiative that is the first applied quantum program in the Energy Department's history, according to ARPA-E Director Connor Prohaska, who spoke at the same event. Prohaska said the program directs recipients to apply existing quantum technology to energy problems rather than fund further hardware research.
"We're not just doing research for the sake of research," Prohaska said. "We have to ask the question: If it works, will it matter?"
Prohaska said the administration is working with Congress on a reauthorization of the National Quantum Initiative Act and that the Office of Science and Technology Policy has issued an executive order on quantum capabilities.
For investors, the more consequential federal action remains Executive Order 14412, signed June 22, which requires federal agencies to migrate to post-quantum cryptography. The order sets deadlines of Dec. 31, 2030, for key establishment on high-value assets and Dec. 31, 2031, for digital signatures. Legislation introduced in late June by Rep. Pat Harrigan, R-N.C., would codify the order.
Qunnect used the event to publish research arguing that post-quantum cryptography, while necessary, leaves gaps that entanglement-based networking can fill. The company said its work with federal agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Air Force Research Laboratory, National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Energy Department, informed three security applications: hardware authentication, fiber intrusion detection and location verification.
Qunnect CEO Noel Goddard told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview that the National Security Agency should revisit its 2020 guidance discouraging quantum key distribution for national security systems, arguing the assessment predates the ability to reliably distribute entangled photons.
"They [the NSA] have not done a reevaluation since the initial one, which was done on first generation technology," Goddard said.
James Kushmerick, director of NIST's Physical Measurement Laboratory, offered a different perspective. He told the audience to deploy post-quantum cryptography on their networks as soon as possible, and framed the central contest as a computing one.
"Whoever wins the race for a cryptographically relevant computer has huge power, so that's just the hard stop," he said.
Qunnect's disclosures suggest its most distinctive capability is also its least mature. The company's white paper describes quantum position verification, which uses the speed of light and entangled photons to certify where and when a transaction occurred, as its standout application.
According to the white paper, a demonstration of the technology was conducted inside the company's Brooklyn headquarters with members of the US intelligence community present. A diagram of the protocol in New York City shows how a few costly nodes could serve as a backbone for many cheaper nodes across a city, the company's proposed answer to the cost of scaling.
Goddard acknowledged the constraint, calling position verification the most powerful of the three applications and also the hardest to implement.
"Quantum hardware and equipment is still expensive," Goddard said. "That's just part of the deal."
Goddard said the company has sold hardware since 2024 and has equipment installed at NIST in Maryland and at a US Air Force Research Laboratory in Rome, New York.
In-Q-Tel Inc., the intelligence community's venture arm, has been an investor in Qunnect since 2022. Yan Zheng, In-Q-Tel executive vice president of strategic engagements, said the firm has a portfolio of 21 investments focused on quantum computing, quantum sensing, security, and hardware infrastructure.
Denis Mandich, co-founder of the encryption company Qrypt Inc. and a former CIA officer, said post-quantum standards do nothing about data adversaries have already copied and stored, or what he called the "harvest now, decrypt later" problem.
Goddard also issued a caution about her own sector and marketing outpacing the state of the technology.
"We need to keep a critical eye against hype," she said. "We have a lot to be proud of in terms of where the technology is today. But we need to invest more in order to continue that."
What's happening this week?
Below is a list of hearings, webinars and other tech, media and telecom-related events taking place virtually and in person in the nation's capital and beyond this week:
Sept. 29 - Oct. 1
➤ SCTE TechExpo26
Sept. 29
➤ Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property: Oversight hearings to examine the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Sept. 30
➤ Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Disaster Management, District of Columbia, and Census: Hearings to examine rogue AI, focusing on securing the homeland against AI agents
Oct. 1
➤ UC Student and Policy Center and the California Initiative for Technology & Democracy: The Role of Technology in the 2026 Election and Beyond
Oct. 2
➤ Women in Public Policy & Law DC: Real Talk, Industry Insights & Networking
