DOE Looks to Build Quantum Computing Into National Research Utility - meritalk.com

Details By: Lisbeth Perez Sep 25, 2026 3:19 pm DOE Looks to Build Quantum Computing Into National Research Utility Energy Department science chief Darío Gil said the department wants to develop national user facilities that would give researchers broader access to advanced quantum computing. The Department of Energy (DOE) is looking to build national quantum computing user facilities that would give researchers broad access to advanced systems as the technology matures. Speaking at the Quantum World Congress on Sept 25, DOE Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil said the department wants to build on its five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers by developing quantum computing user facilities modeled on infrastructure that DOE already makes available to the research community. “We absolutely want to see a situation where we … go beyond the current five centers that we support … into a future where we have these user facilities,” Gil said. “And as long as there is computing, there will be quantum computing present in that journey.” The approach would extend DOE’s existing user-facility model – which provides researchers access to high-performance computing systems, light sources, particle accelerators, and other specialized scientific infrastructure – into quantum computing. Rather than focusing solely on individual quantum systems, Gil described a future in which researchers could gain broader access to quantum computing capabilities through DOE’s scientific infrastructure. Gil pointed to artificial intelligence (AI) as an example of the access gap that DOE wants to avoid as quantum technology advances. “In AI, we find ourselves in a situation that while the private sector has the best AI supercomputers in the world, it is not the case that that is present in academia or in the national laboratories,” Gil said. “And therefore we end up with this asymmetry of capability.” Gil said DOE wants to “enable the whole ecosystem to be healthy and not end up in a situation of haves and have-nots.” The user-facility vision aligns with DOE’s broader quantum roadmap, which calls for establishing a dedicated Quantum Computing User Facility and, over the longer term, integrating quantum capabilities with the department’s AI and high-performance computing infrastructure. Gil said that progression will require DOE to measure success by the scientific capabilities it enables rather than simply by the number of research programs it operates. The longer-term goal, Gil said, is to bring quantum computing into a broader scientific computing environment that combines quantum systems, AI, and high-performance computing – and makes those capabilities available to researchers across the U.S. scientific enterprise.

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