Executive Orders Move Quantum from Research to Real Life—and It’s Truly a Watershed Moment
On June 22, President Trump signed two executive orders (EOs) - EO 14413 ("Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation") and EO 14412 ("Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks") - that will define how the United States competes in quantum technology. One launches a national effort to build a quantum computer capable of initiating a new era of scientific discovery. The other sets hard deadlines - 2030 and 2031 - for federal agencies to migrate their most sensitive systems to post-quantum cryptography.
These EOs build on years of bipartisan work under the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Act and directives like National Security Memorandum 10 (NSM-10). Together, they say something I've been waiting a long time to hear from Washington: Quantum isn't just about academic research. It's a national security priority with a schedule attached. Together, they reflect the two imperatives now shaping quantum policy: moving faster to turn research into capability and preparing now for adversarial cryptographic risks.
What these orders recognize is that quantum has crossed an important threshold. For decades, federal policy focused on advancing science. Now it is focused on translating that science into quantum capability and accelerating the transition to post-quantum cryptography. The question is no longer whether quantum will matter, but how quickly government, industry, and academia can translate decades of research into capabilities that strengthen national security, scientific leadership, and competitiveness.
I've spent most of my career on the government side of this. At Sandia National Laboratories I led the Quantum Information Science program, developing new quantum technologies, testbeds, and centers for national security. That work included four years with the Department of Energy's Quantum Systems Accelerator — one of five National Quantum Initiative Science Centers — first as its Deputy Director and then as its Director. I later served as Director of the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), which runs research for the U.S. intelligence community.
The national labs and the NQI centers did what they were set up to do, and the science is further along than most people outside the field realize. What was missing was the other half of the problem — a clear path from a working prototype to something a mission actually depends on. These executive orders take that on directly. That's why they matter.
Benchmarking Practical Impact
To bridge the gap between laboratory science and operational capability, how we measure progress must also shift. Moving beyond physical qubit counts, IonQ's Application-Centric Benchmarking Framework measures end-to-end Time-to-Solution across real-world workloads — including whether a system returns a valid answer at a required accuracy threshold at all, which conventional qubit-count metrics don't capture.
We see this translated into commercial impact today, such as IonQ’s recent demonstration with AstraZeneca, AWS, and NVIDIA, which achieved a >20x speedup in Time-to-Solution, compared to prior benchmarks, for catalytic reaction modeling in pharmaceutical R&D.
Preparing for Success and Securing the Future
My colleagues Cameron Chehreh and Jordan Shapiro have written about what these orders actually require, as Q-day (when quantum computers can break public-key encryption) approaches, agency by agency. So I won't retread that ground here. What I want to talk about is what it feels like to have spent a career advancing this technology’s serious national security capabilities, and how exciting it is to see it finally receive the prioritization it deserves.
Quantum is now. Not because the science is finished, but because decades of investment by government, academia, and industry have built a strong foundation, and breakthroughs across the quantum ecosystem are accelerating the transition from scientific promise to strategic capability and commercial impact. That’s why the public and private sector alike can no longer afford to simply watch quantum’s progress—they need strategies to prepare for its opportunities and its implications.
That’s the story behind these executive orders. They don’t mark the beginning of the quantum era: they acknowledge that it has entered a new phase. Policy is no longer focused solely on advancing discovery. It’s increasingly about accelerating deployment, strengthening our nation’s competitiveness, and preparing for the implications of success.
But there’s another reason these executive orders matter. As exciting as quantum computing is, it also changes the security equation. The cryptographic systems that underpin national security and our digital economy weren’t designed for a world with quantum computers. Adversaries are already engaging in "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" strategy—storing encrypted data today to decrypt once hardware matures. Modernizing that foundation will take years, which means preparation needs to be underway now and can’t wait until quantum computing reaches full maturity.
That’s why the post-quantum cryptography executive order (EO 14412) is so important. By aligning migration mandates with NIST’s finalized Post-Quantum Cryptography standards (FIPS 203, 204, and 205), it recognizes that strengthening our digital foundations is not simply a cybersecurity project, but a national competitiveness and resilience imperative.
That’s what makes this a watershed moment. These executive orders move quantum from long-term aspiration to national execution on a clock. The opportunity before us is clear: move with urgency, invest with purpose, and work together to ensure the U.S. leads not only in quantum discovery, but in quantum deployment.
IonQ Forward-Looking Statements
This blog post contains forward-looking statements. All statements contained in this blog post other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the expected impact, scope, and implementation of Executive Orders 14412 and 14413 and related federal quantum and post-quantum cryptography initiatives; the anticipated timelines for federal agencies' migration to post-quantum cryptography; the pace at which decades of quantum research will translate into deployed, mission-ready capability; the anticipated performance, benefits, and commercial impact of IonQ's quantum computing systems, application-centric benchmarking framework, and partner demonstrations; and IonQ's role in advancing U.S. competitiveness, scientific leadership, and national security. These statements are only predictions based on our expectations and projections about future events as of the date of this blog post and are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that may prove incorrect, any of which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements, including, among others, those described under the heading “Risk Factors” in our most recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
New risks emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for our management to predict all risks, nor can management assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statement we make. Investors are cautioned not to place undue reliance on any such forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made.
Except as otherwise required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Rick Muller serves as IonQ’s Senior Vice President and Chief Scientist for IonQ Federal. He has spent his career at the intersection of quantum science, emerging technology, and national security.
