Amazon and Google set to participate in White House quantum technology forum

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) are scheduled to attend a Biden administration conference on quantum technology on Tuesday as that the US government is working to ward off piracy threats and corner a burgeoning industry.

The White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is hosting the event that will discuss critical applications of quantum computing, which is expected to run millions of times faster than today’s advanced supercomputers.

Boeing Co (BA.N), Honeywell International Inc, International Business Machines Corp (IBM.N), Intel Corp (INTC.O) and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N) are also expected to attend, according to a spokesperson for the ‘administration.

“There is a lot of excitement about quantum computers and quantum sensors, and there is some hype associated with it,” said Charlie Tahan, deputy director of quantum information science at OSTP.

“But what we really want to focus on is what applications a future quantum computer could run that could really benefit our society.”

The technology, which is based on the fundamentals of physics, is still in its infancy but has become the darling of investors aspiring to revolutionize healthcare, finance, artificial intelligence, weather forecasting and other areas.

President Joe Biden’s administration is particularly focused on the national security implications of quantum technology, which promises the ability to easily decipher encryption standards in use today.

China, which Washington sees as its main rival abroad, has also made significant efforts to develop the technology.

The Biden administration also hopes to encourage more students to enter the field and increase cybersecurity around private research and development to prevent espionage, Tahan said.

Congress has already pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into industry, including quantum research labs, and the bills currently under consideration could add billions more.

The White House meeting will also include the organizations ColdQuanta, D-Wave, IonQ, QC Ware, Quantum Economic Development-Consortium, Rigetti Computing, Vector Atomic and Zapata.

Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Edwina Gibbs

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