Quantum technology is still in its early stages of maturity, but it could eventually have a major impact on both economic prosperity and national security. Many U.S. allies and partners have strong technical capabilities in quantum research and development, and effective collaboration will be critical to keeping the United States and its allies and partners competitive with other countries that are also investing significant resources in this area.
This perspective provides a broad and largely non-technical overview of the current quantum technology landscape and the strategic importance (and challenges) of research collaboration with allied and partner countries. It includes a discussion of five key policy areas in this area: talent flows, standard setting, supply chains, export controls and diversification of the technological approach, and concludes with a proposal for a desirable strategic end state that can serve as a useful unifying framework. for policy decisions on this topic.
The primary audience for this prospectus is US government policymakers working on quantum technology issues, but the material may also be of interest to allied and partner officials, academic researchers, or industry workers involved in US policy decisions on this issue. area.
This perspective was conducted under the Acquisition and Technology Policy Program of the RAND National Security Research Division (NSRD), which is managed by the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The Joint Chiefs, Joint Combatant Commands, Navy, Marine Corps, Defense Agencies, and Defense Intelligence Enterprise. This research was made possible by NDRI exploratory research funding provided through an FFRDC contract and approved by NDRI’s major sponsor.
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