Quantum computing export controls on China follow up Biden administration faces three major questions

Previously Bloomberg reported [1] that the U.S. Department of Commerce is working on new trade restrictions aimed at crippling China's quantum computing; this comes after the U.S. imposed export controls on advanced semiconductor technology. It is unclear, however, how soon any such measures would be enacted. But the Biden administration appears to be meeting resistance within the United States.

01The U.S. path to "quantum regulation"

Discussions between the Commerce Department and the private sector (including Google, IBM, Quantinuum and IonQ) have been underway for years and have spanned the Biden and Trump administrations. However, according to industry sources familiar with the discussions, there is growing pressure to accelerate action, particularly from the National Security Agency and other intelligence agencies: they see China's progress on quantum as a major problem.

Asked to comment on the progress of those efforts, the Commerce Department and the White House pointed the protocol to recent remarks by Alan Estevez, undersecretary for industry and security. "So are we finally going to do something in these areas?" Estevez said last week when asked about additional control over quantum computing devices, "If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on it."

They then declined to comment further on the issue. This September, however, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan listed quantum computing as one of the top three technology categories (biotechnology, clean energy and computing) that the government wants to protect as critical to the U.S. over the next decade.

Despite significant progress, quantum computing is still a nascent technology, especially when compared to other emerging technology areas such as artificial intelligence. This makes the Biden administration's regulation of the field tricky. Export controls could harm or even derail overall progress in the field and pave the way for other countries to take a more dominant position in the development of the technology; while the technology is still in the experimental stage, future developments could overtake classical computing.

Globally, however, there is recognition of the need to put some protections in place; the U.S. would like to take more aggressive action. The U.S. is aiming to reach agreements with other countries that have invested heavily in the quantum field and are important partners for domestic quantum producers, industry sources said. Japan, for example, signed a quantum cooperation agreement with the U.S. in 2019; Australia and the United Kingdom are also U.S. intelligence allies.

While the Commerce Department hopes to act quickly and could issue new regulations by the end of the year, it is likely to be delayed until 2023, these sources said.

02Challenge 1: Too Many Agencies Involved, Discussions Continue for Years

On Oct. 6, Biden visited the IBM plant in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which is also home to the IBM Quantum Computing Center. Following the factory tour, Biden announced a $20 billion investment in semiconductors, quantum computing and other cutting-edge technologies in New York State.

In 2018, the U.S. Congress passed export control legislation directing the White House to establish the trade control system that should be put in place and to determine which emerging technologies could raise national security concerns if exported outside the United States.

The legislation made the Department of Commerce the leader of the process and included three other federal agencies - the Departments of Defense, Energy and Congress - as well as other necessary agencies such as the National Security Agency in the consultation process. And the White House, through the National Security Council, plays a coordinating role in setting policy. Now, startups like Quantinnum and IonQ, as well as large manufacturers including IBM and Google, are meeting with the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security to negotiate the codification of export controls.

While the current discussions are seen as a prelude to new controls, the negotiations have been underway for years and have even extended from the Trump administration to the present. In late 2021, for example, the Commerce Department discussed with companies how to seek export restrictions on the quantum industry, including how the government plans to assess the performance of quantum computers and limits around quantum bit processing to control them, according to government and industry sources. After opposition to these early ideas, BIS and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, among others, are trying to take a more measured approach that won't stifle the U.S. and reflects the nascent nature of the technology, industry sources said.

However, government and industry sources said [2] that the agency is facing pressure from the National Security Agency, which is strongly advocating for new export controls. The sources added that the NSA has a keen interest in quantum, both to understand how the technology could be used to decrypt sensitive U.S. information and how it could be used to access adversaries' encrypted data.

03Challenge 2: The technical complexity involved makes regulation difficult

Given that quantum computers are still largely in the development stage, it remains unclear how the Commerce Department will enact any new export controls. However, it is worth noting that the government appears to be narrowing down specific areas, such as error-correcting software, and the end-use applications that will eventually run on top of quantum computers.

Many in the industry identify hardware advances based on the number of quantum bits (the core unit of measurement for quantum computing) that their respective machines can handle; however, this measurement can be misleading. Many of these quantum bits may not be stable enough to produce accurate results, significantly reducing the power of the hardware. This is why the Commerce Department staff recognizes the importance of error-correcting software, which can help improve the quality of quantum bits and, ultimately, the power of quantum computers.

A further challenge is how to oversee networked quantum computers. For example, a customer might buy multiple computers from different vendors that are all under some predetermined performance threshold: 200 quantum bits, for example, to avoid export controls. They could then use these computers in conjunction with each other to build a more powerful machine that would theoretically exceed the 200-quantum-bit processing limit, which would be subject to controls.

The most pressing issue when it comes to regulating quantum computing is that no one knows exactly what a successful quantum computer will look like. Unlike more mature areas of technology, such as semiconductors, there are no easily identifiable breakthrough points where the Bureau of Industry and Security can cut off these barriers.

There is no standard way to build a quantum computer, nor is there a standard set of tools necessary, but the U.S. has historically targeted these tools to impede the use of specific technologies. There is also the issue of software, which can be tricky to put under export controls; a large part of quantum software is open source. However, key parts of the stack, such as the software that ultimately connects to the hardware and the user-facing applications, remain proprietary.

04Challenge 3: Undermining global cooperation and threatening the development of the quantum economy

And any additional action on quantum hardware or software has the potential to hinder progress. For example, many of the components used by U.S.-based manufacturers of quantum hardware are sourced internationally; Germany is a major exporter of laser technology for quantum use, while Finland exports the dilute coolers needed to make computers work.

The new export controls could make it harder for them to operate globally and potentially hinder their ability to get the parts they need to advance their machines, industry sources say. For example, export controls on a component could add considerable time to the procurement process, and might even convince foreign suppliers to stop selling them altogether to avoid compliance; it could also affect manufacturers' ability to sell cloud access to their computers, even to domestic customers, and to publish scientific studies based on those systems.

The challenge is also that the United States has taken a very different approach to quantum. Japan, Denmark, Italy, Germany and other countries have witnessed the technological revolution of the past few decades from the sidelines and are now eager to get an early lead in what could become a multi-billion dollar industry that is redefining the technology sector. They seem reluctant to act under the "guise" of national security, which could threaten the development of their domestic quantum economies.

Quantum technology is still years or even decades away from widespread commercial or military use. But it has progressed rapidly as companies such as IBM, Quantinuum and IonQ have announced more aggressive product roadmaps.

China is also investing heavily in quantum technology. Unlike the United States, China has been working to unify it across all sectors of the country's economy, a move designed to prepare China to take advantage of the monetary and security advantages that quantum may one day offer.

Absent any significant change in course, the United States is apparently hell-bent on maintaining a national security-first approach to quantum; however, this does not appear to be a common view. The Biden administration is said to be acutely aware of the challenge of dealing with security and economic issues simultaneously.

However, this is a difficult line to cross: any action will almost certainly have some impact on U.S. domestic manufacturers. And the results will affect not only quantum, but any developing technologies that pose a risk if they are used by others.

Reference links:

[1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-10-20/us-eyes-expanding-china-tech-ban-to-quantum-computing-and-ai

[2]https://www.protocol.com/newsletters/protocol-enterprise/biden-quantum-computing-microsoft-china