Google Declined U.S. Quantum Funding Initiative Over Program Restrictions

Insider Brief

• Google declined to participate in the U.S. government’s $2 billion quantum funding initiative, citing program conditions that the company said would have slowed its development efforts.
• Microsoft and IonQ were also absent from the list of nine funding recipients, which included IBM, Quantinuum, PsiQuantum, Rigetti Computing, Infleqtion and GlobalFoundries.
• Google said it remains engaged with the federal government through other partnerships while advocating for greater investment in basic quantum research.

Google chose not to participate in the U.S. government’s recent $2 billion quantum technology funding initiative because the conditions attached to the program would have slowed the company’s development efforts, according to comments made by a senior executive this week.

Speaking at the Semafor Tech Summit in San Francisco on June 10, Google Quantum AI Chief Operating Officer Charina Chou said the company declined the opportunity…