The Department of Energy (DOE) opened a competition with up to $215 million in planned funding aimed at accelerating commercially built quantum computers capable of solving scientific problems beyond the reach of conventional systems.
DOE’s Office of Science posted the request for applications for the Quantum Genesis Q Competition on Sept. 17. Applications are due Oct. 19, and DOE plans an informational webinar for prospective applicants on Sept. 25.
The competition is open to private sector companies with technically viable plans for meeting the program’s milestones. DOE is seeking systems with at least 100 logical qubits capable of performing fault-tolerant operations and scientific demonstration programs, with the broader goal of demonstrating scientifically relevant, error-corrected quantum computing by 2028.
The competition uses a two-phase, milestone-based funding model. Under Phase I, DOE will provide fixed awards worth up to $1.5 million per awardee for meeting early milestones.
Phase II includes a $100 million general incentive pool to be divided among teams that demonstrate a first-generation scientifically relevant quantum computer with at least 100 logical qubits. The competition also includes two $50 million bonus incentive pools for teams that demonstrate systems with at least 150 and 200 logical qubits, respectively.
DOE said the competition has up to $215 million in planned funding, including $2.5 million in fiscal 2026 funding. Outyear funding is contingent on congressional appropriations.
The program is part of DOE’s broader Quantum Genesis initiative and aligns with an Office of Science Advisory Committee roadmap calling for a milestone-driven effort to demonstrate a scientifically relevant, error-corrected quantum computer by 2028.
Darío Gil, DOE’s under secretary for science, said the initiative is intended to emphasize useful scientific performance rather than hardware scale alone.
“Our goal is not simply to build the largest quantum computer; it is to solve problems that are otherwise completely intractable,” Gil wrote in a Sept. 17 DOE blog post.
Gil pointed to potential applications including predicting molecular properties for drug discovery, designing catalysts for manufacturing, simulating materials relevant to fusion energy, and modeling fundamental physics.
The roadmap also calls for multidisciplinary challenges pairing national laboratories, universities, and industry to co-design hardware, algorithms, and software around specific scientific targets. DOE plans to maintain a technology-neutral approach that could encompass superconducting circuits, neutral atoms, trapped ions, photonics, and spin qubits.
DOE also issued a separate $45 million Quantum High Performance Computing Validation and Verification Testbed Lab Call to establish capabilities for independently evaluating quantum systems. The call is open to DOE national laboratories and includes $14 million in fiscal 2026 funding. Outyear funding is contingent on congressional appropriations.
Letters of intent for the lab call are due Sept. 30, and full proposals are due Nov. 10.
The testbed effort is intended to develop rigorous tools for characterizing and validating quantum systems across the computing stack – from physical hardware and quantum gates to logical architectures, quantum algorithms and applications, and classical control systems.