The Energy Department launches $215 million push to make quantum computers scientifically useful by 2028

Department of Energy is launching a $215 million competition to build quantum computers that are usable in scientific research. Officials are hopeful that early versions of such machines could be operational as soon as 2028. While ordinary computers famously store data as binary digits that can take on a value of either zero or one, quantum computers harness the laws of quantum mechanics to store quantum bits, or qubits, that can take on more complex states.