1 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available RPTR DEAN EDTR ROSEN DISRUPTER SERIES QUANTUM COMPUTING WEDNESDAY MAY 18 2018 House of Representatives Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee on Energy and Commerce Washington D C The subcommittee met pursuant to call at 9 16 a m in Room 2322 Rayburn House Office Building Hon Robert Latta chairman of the subcommittee presiding Present Representatives Latta Lance Guthrie McKinley Kinzinger Bilirakis Bucshon Walters Costello Schakowsky Welch Kennedy and Green 2 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Staff Present Mike Bloomquist Staff Director Margaret Tucker Fogarty Staff Assistant Melissa Froelich Chief Counsel Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Adam Fromm Director of Outreach and Coalitions Ali Fulling Legislative Clerk O I Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Elena Hernandez Press Secretary Paul Jackson Professional Staff Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Bijan Koohmaraie Counsel Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Peter Spencer Senior Professional Staff Member Energy Andy Zach Senior Professional Staff Member Environment Greg Zerzan Counsel Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Michelle Ash Minority Chief Counsel Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection Jeff Carroll Minority Staff Director Caroline Paris-Behr Minority Policy Analyst and Michelle Rusk Minority FTC Detailee 3 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Latta Good morning And again I would like to welcome you all to the Subcommittee on Digital Commerce and Consumer Protection here on Energy and Commerce As I mentioned we have another subcommittee that is running right now so we will have members coming back from first floor upstairs during the committee from one to the other But again I do thank you all for being here today And I will recognize myself for my 5-minute opening statement And again welcome to the subcommittee in today's disruptor series hearing examining quantum computing We continue our disrupter series as we examine emerging technology supporting U S innovation and jobs This morning we are discussing the revolutionary technology known as quantum computing This involves harnessing the power of physics at its most basis level Unlike the computers we are familiar with we use today a quantum computer holds the potential to be faster and more powerful This innovation is expected to change every industry and make problems that are impossible to solve today something that can be solved in a matter of days or weeks Efforts to develop a commercially available and practical quantum computer are being pursued around the world Because of the tremendous costs involved in developing a suitable environment for a quantum computer to operate many of these efforts involve government support both the European Union and China have pledged or already have spent 4 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available billions to develop a quantum computer In the United States development of quantum computer is proceeding at the academic governmental and private sectors In addition to the larger and familiar technology companies smaller startups are also leading efforts in this area We are fortunate to have one of these startups IonQ to testify today Although a quantum computer holds a tremendous potential to solve previously noncomputable problems there are skeptics who question whether it will be possible to ever develop such technology We look forward to our witnesses giving us their thoughts on this question On the other hand some fear that the threats such a computer would pose to traditional computing model especially when it comes to encryption and data security Some fear that a quantum computer would make it nearly impossible to keep future computers secure Data security and consumer privacy are key concerns of this committee We also look forward to our witnesses addressing this issue as well Quantum computers hold tremendous potential to help solve problems involving the discovery of new drugs developing more efficient supply chains and logistics operations searching massive volumes of data and developing artificial intelligence Whichever nation first develops a practical quantum computer will have a tremendous advantage over its foreign peers We hope our 5 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available witnesses will help us examine the state of the race to develop a quantum computer and how the United States is doing in that race obviously a very dense subject This is We also understand there are several other areas under development leveraging the principle of quantum mechanics Our goal today is simple to develop a better understanding of the potential of quantum computers the obstacles to developing this technology and what policymakers should be doing to remove barriers and to help spur innovation competition and ensure a strong and prepared workforce for future jobs As we explore this topic today I would again like to thank our witnesses for coming to share their expertise on this very complicated and revolutionary technology I again appreciate you all being here today And at this time I will yield back my time and recognize the gentlelady from Illinois the ranking member of the subcommittee for 5 minutes Ms Schakowsky Well I want to thank you Mr Chairman We continue our disrupter series with exploration of quantum computing I want to congratulate all of you for being so smart Dr Franklin I was just told I think it was your mother and I graduated from the University of Illinois about the same time This was a time before we knew anything about computers really it was just beginning And 6 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available here you are today the next generation leading us into the future So I appreciate all of you being here today This technology I understand is still in the research phase but the potential applications are tremendous from healthcare to energy efficiency and everything in between Given this potential global competitors from the European Union to China are rushing to invest in quantum computing The U S must make strategic investments if it wants to stay ahead And those investments really start with STEM education We must encourage students including young women and students of color to pursue interests in computer science and physics Fostering curiosity today prepares young minds to become great innovator of tomorrow As a former teacher myself I strongly believe that our future economic success depends on investing in our children's education Our research universities are leading the way on quantum computing Public investment is crucial to develop technology until it can be profitable possibly deployed in the private sector However the Federal Government has so far failed to provide robust reliable investments in quantum computing The lack of investment in STEM education and research speaks to the misguided priorities of this Republican Congress While wealthy shareholders get most of the gains from a $2 trillion Republican tax bill Congress is underinvesting in 7 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available students and research institutions We fund tax cuts for the rich at the expense of our future prosperity Now that Congress has passed a budget agreement we have the chance to make some of the investments that our country so desperately needs But instead of embracing the opportunity to advance bipartisan appropriations bills the Republican majority plans to bring up a rescission bill to pull back funding for children's health insurance programs and other programs And today we will be voting on a bill to literally take food out of the mouths of families We need to get our priorities straight The U S can be a global leader in quantum computing and other groundbreaking technologies but only if we prioritize investment for our future over tax cuts for the wealthy I look forward to hearing from our panel about the promise of quantum computing I will try my best to follow what you are telling me and the challenges that we face in developing this technology I am especially proud to welcome Professor Diana Franklin from the University of Chicago The University of Chicago is one of the leaders in quantum computing research and I am eager to hear more about this work So thank you chairman Latta and I yield back Mr Latta Well thank you very much The gentlelady yields 8 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available back The chairman of the full committee has not made it in yet Is there any one on the Republican side wishing to claim his time If not at this time that will conclude the member's opening statements And to get to the real meat of the issue today that we want to hear about And I won't tell you how long ago Madam Ranker how long -- when I took computer science in college I probably shouldn't say this we used punch cards and teletype machines It was a bad Saturday morning we went back to the computer science department and you were expecting about that much and came back with that much and you knew you had made a mistake But I want to thank our witnesses for being here with us today and we are really looking forward this -- your testimony today And our witnesses will have an opportunity to make 5-minute opening statements And our witnesses today are Dr Matthew Putman Founder and CEO of Nanotronics Dr Christopher Monroe Chief Scientist and Founder of IonQ and Professor of Physics at the University Maryland Dr Diana Franklin Professor and Director of Computer Science at the University of Chicago and Mr Michael Brett CEO of QxBranch And so again we appreciate you being here today And Dr Putman you are recognized for 5 minutes for your opening statement If you would just press that microphone and pull it close to you and we will get started 9 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available STATEMENTS OF MATTHEW PUTMAN FOUNDER AND CEO NANOTRONICS CHRISTOPHER MONROE CHIEF SCIENTIST AND FOUNDER IONQ PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND DIANA FRANKLIN PROFESSOR UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AND MICHAEL BRETT CEO QXBRANCH STATEMENT OF MATTHEW PUTMAN Mr Putman Thank you so much Chairman Latta Congresswomen and Congressmen Nanotronics does not make quantum computers We are the enablers of technologists and companies that with us strive to revolutionize the way information can be transformed We have provided some of the world's largest companies and smaller entrepreneurial innovators with the tools of modern computation and imaging We work with those that build the most advanced materials in microelectronics Nanotronics achieved this in the only way we see feasible for the continued exponential progression of technology which is through artificially intelligent factories Quantum computing not only promises to break the barriers of encryption it also breaks some fundamental barriers to human progress Many of our greatest achievements have been characterized in terms of competition and races Often a technological race appears to be a 10 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available war of ideologies or of business dominance With quantum computing there is an even greater battle the fight against physical scarcity There are three areas that we must work together on to win not only for our Nation but for humanity agriculture new fertilizers can feed the increasing population of the world while maintaining diversity of crops drug discovery by being able to simulate and produce molecules faster and with greater precision than are possible by traditional means This will not only lead to cures for diseases but reduce the often financially restrictive experimentation and trials that are required to make even incremental improvements and treatments Materials for power devices from batteries to solar cells These have been studied for decades but in many respects the United States is still early on in this journey Companies are moving with speed and with national support it is possible that quantum computing can soon reach an inflection point The race to achieve a workable quantum computer that can reduce scarcity to this level requires greater national attention than has currently been realized by either the vast majority of companies or of the country as a whole The steps to enabling quantum computing will need to involve one an effort that funds the creation of factories for new quantum chips A semiconductor fab for classical computers can cost as much as 11 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available $20 billion To a large extent these fabs are not being built in the United States We have an opportunity to acknowledge and to change this trend by leading the way in the construction of factories for this next generation of powerful computing Two artificial intelligence While quantum computing itself will increase the capabilities of artificial intelligence the ability to design materials and software for quantum computers themselves will come through the interaction of human and computer agents Understanding such key elements as component design fabrication conditions and the number of qubits needed requires collaboration of humans and machines The number of qubits in a quantum computer is directly related to the number of calculations A 10 qubit quantum computer can produce 1 000 calculations and a 30 qubit quantum computer can produce 1 billion Millions of qubits are required to achieve the full potential of quantum computing This exponential growth in qubit to calculations is beyond the reach of factories as they are Without the advanced tools of AI for controlling factories a truly useful quantum computer may not be possible Three education We need to develop the expertise required for the multidisciplinary nature of quantum computer science It is physics chemistry mathematics computer science and application curiosity and expertise are all necessary We cannot work in 12 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available isolation We need to embrace immigration and welcome strong talent from around the world with expertise in these areas When we look towards the future we can see it as a battle of ideologies of resources or of technologies encompass all of these to some extent Quantum computers Quantum mechanics is the basis of universal behavior at the smallest scales but affects the largest of matter It is therefore not surprising that harnessing this physical property has such far-reaching implications It is because of this that it is important that we view it with the powerful association that it warrants with the weight of risk in a fractured world or of great rewards in a unified one 13 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available As we move forward we see how quantum computing lets us scale in ways that meet not only the needs of industry but of our country and the world Thank you very much The prepared statement of Mr Putman follows INSERT 1-1 14 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Latta Well thank you for your testimony this morning And Dr Monroe you are recognized for 5 minutes Thank you STATEMENT OF CHRISTOPHER MONROE Mr Monroe Chairman Thank you for the opportunity to testify Mr I am honored to be here for this committee's disrupter series on quantum computing I am a quantum physicist at the University of Maryland and also co-founder and chief scientist at IonQ which is a startup company that aims to build and manufacture small quantum computers I have also worked with the National Photonics Initiative which is a collaborative alliance among industry academic -- and academics with the interest in developing quantum technology And I with the National Photonics Initiative we have promoted the idea of a National Quantum Initiative and there is pending legislation that is coming up in the House Science Committee So I have about 1 minute to define what quantum computers are and I think I can get to some of the basics is stored in bits zeros or ones We know that information The fundamental difference in quantum information it is stored in quantum bits or qubits these can be both zero and one at the same time as long as you don't look And 15 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available at the end of day you look and it randomly assumes one of the values But as long as you don't look there is a potential for massive parallelism as you add qubits you get exponential storage capacity And because quantum computers only work while you are not looking it involves quite revolutionary and even exotic hardware to realize this Individual atoms that is the technology we use at IonQ superconducting circuits that are kept at very low temperatures other competing platforms involved that type of technology exotic stuff It is very And I think within the next several years we are going to see small quantum computers with up to about 100 quantum bits It sounds pretty small but even with 100 quantum bits it can in a sense deal with information that eclipses that of all the hard drives in the world And on our way to a million qubits where we can do new problems that conventional qubit computers could never tackle we need to build the small ones first So in terms of quantum applications I would say it falls roughly into three categories there is strong overlaps In the short term quantum sensors can enhance sensitivity to certain measurements that could impact navigation and it may be in a GPS-blind environment and also remote sensing In the medium turn quantum communication networks may allow the transmission of information that can be provably secure because 16 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available remember quantum information only exists when nobody looks at it somebody looks at it it changes If And that can make communication inherently secure In the long term probably the most disruptive technology are quantum computers And quantum computers are not just more powerful computers they are radically different and they may allow us to solve problems that could never ever be solved using classical computers These involve optimization routines that could impact logistics economic and financial modeling and also the design of new materials and molecular function that could impact the health sciences and drug delivery for instance An even longer term quantum computers could be used to do decryption breaking of popular codes So there is a security aspect to everything that quantum information touches Now the challenges are pronounced in this field few issues marketplace There are a One involving the workforce and one involving the The workforce issue is that universities are chock full of students and faculty that are comfortable with quantum physics and we do research in the area but we don't build things that can be used by somebody that doesn't want to or need to know all the details Whereas industry makes those things but they don't have a quantum engineering workforce The marketplace is also a challenge because we don't know exactly 17 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available what the killer app for quantum computers in particular will be So we have promoted the idea of a National Quantum Initiative that would establish several large and focused hub labs throughout the country and other components as well including the user access program for existing quantum computers It is imperative that the U S retain its leadership in this technological frontier As we heard from the chairman there is concerted efforts in Europe and in particular China that is spending lots of very focused investments in this field So in conclusion quantum technology is coming and the U S should lead in this next generation of sensors computers and communication networks The National Quantum Initiative provides a framework for implementing a comprehensive quantum initiative across the Federal Government Thank you Mr Chairman members of the committee for the opportunity to speak on quantum technology and the need for a nationally focused effort to advanced quantum information science and technology in the U S The prepared statement of Mr Monroe follows INSERT 1-2 18 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Latta Well thank you very much And Dr Franklin you are recognized for 5 minutes STATEMENT OF DIANA FRANKLIN Ms Franklin Thank you for the opportunity to testify Mr Chairman and Ranking Member Schakowsky I am honored to be here before you in the committee to offer testimony on the promise of quantum technology The important role universities must play to realize commercialization and the biggest challenges we are facing in doing so In my dual roles as director of computer science education at UChicago STEM Ed and a research associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Chicago I research emerging technologies and computer science education As lead investigator for quantum education for the EPIC quantum computing project in the NSF expeditions in computing program it is my mission to design and implement educational initiatives at K-12 university and professional venues to develop a quantum computing workforce Quantum computing can be a game changer in promising areas including drug design and food production By accelerating research time to develop drugs critical Federal research in Medicaid dollars 19 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available could be saved along with improved quality of life Unlocking the secrets of nitrogen fixation through quantum simulation could vastly reduce the energy costs of fertilizer production and thus food production throughout the world While the university has historically been on the forefront of computer science and emerging technologies lapses in academic funding for quantum computer science have allowed global competitors to make great strides Putting the U S back 10 years from where it could have been in research output and workforce development In the past 17 years since the inception of quantum computer science distinguished from quantum physics and algorithm development academic funding has only been available for 8 of these years leading to only 10 Ph D students being trained rather than a potential of almost 200 students and no meaningful education programs aimed at this area As research groups came and went with the funding post-docs were laid off and graduate students were transitioned to conventional computer science fields commercialization Yet universities are critical to While companies work individually and compete against each other to produce proprietary tools academics produce results and tools that all companies can use and improve upon as well as trained experts who can work at companies They are both necessary 20 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available for the commercialization of quantum computing The challenge of bringing quantum computers to the point of usefulness cannot be underestimated both in building reliable a machines and writing software Professor Christopher Monroe talks about -- knows extensive expertise in the former I am here to talk about the increasingly important role that computer scientists must take Historical funding and theoretical software and quantum devices has created a chasm between the software which assumes large perfect hardware and real hardware that is small and unreliable at this point NSF has recently recognized this issue supplementing their hardware initiative quantumly with a stat program that requires an interdisciplinary team that works to bridge this gap software development One gap is in There is a difference between a quantum algorithm and software that can solve a particular problem Bridging this gap requires interdisciplinary teams such as exists at QxBranch Deep expertise is necessary to figure out how to modify software that works in one specific context to another much more so in quantum computing than in traditional computing If this were furniture construction what we have right now is piles of wood screws and nails An expert needs to figure out how to use those to create useful furniture Instead what we want in the future is for nonexperts to be able to go to quantum Ikea get a prefabbed kit and easily modify 21 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available it for their application This exists for classical computing but not for quantum computing Another gap is between software and hardware Current algorithms are written for perfect hardware but hardware on the horizon is very error prone We are on a journey to that perfect hardware but we are not there yet It is like if you meticulously planned to prepare a gourmet meal for 10 but when you arrived there were only supplies for six and you could only use the kitchen for 2 hours prior to the meal you would need to adjust your plans Current and quantum computers that are on the horizon can only sustain computations for a limited time and they are very small modifications can be automated Some However for more advanced modifications the plan needs to be rethought thus some of the specific hardware limitations like the specific ways in which different technologies tend to introduce errors need to be communicated to the programmers so they can figure out how to adjust their applications In order to realize quantum computing Federal funding needs to be first and foremost consistent directed at not just building hardware and developing algorithms but to interdisciplinary teams that include applications developer and computer scientists Spread across a range of agencies with different missions like NSF DARPA 22 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available DOE and DOD directed not just at technology development but to workforce development so there are more people available to write applications and to perform the engineering work at these companies And above all supporting the K-12 STEM pipeline to train the next generation of innovators With a significant investment in hardware software and workforce development I am confident the United States can maintain its dominance in computing This concludes my remarks speak with subcommittee members I appreciate this opportunity to And I am happy to answer any questions you might have The prepared statement of Ms Franklin follows INSERT 1-3 23 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Latta Thank you very much And Mr Brett you are recognized for 5 minutes Thank you STATEMENT OF MICHAEL BRETT Mr Brett Thank you Chairman Latta and Ranking Member Schakowsky and members of this committee I am thrilled to be here today to participate in today's hearing and discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by quantum computing My name is Michael Brett QxBranch I am the CEO of a company called We are an advanced data analytics company based here in Washington D C also with teams in Australia and the U K We are a fast-growing team of data scientists software engineers and machine learning specialists who design algorithms for challenging data problems We are at the cutting edge of creating algorithms that find patterns detect anomalies and uncover other business insights that help our customers reduce their costs and to serve their customers better Data analytics is already a rapidly advancing technology area delivering benefits to people all over the world but we are particularly excited about what quantum computing can do for our business As we have heard quantum computers are not just a faster 24 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available computer they enable an entirely different approach to performing calculations In the realm of quantum physics there is some incredible and surprising phenomena that if harnessed could allow us to solve some interesting and practically unsolvable problems like simulating the interaction between molecules As these molecules grow in size the computational costs grows exponentially larger Our friends who build quantum computing hardware are in the process of creating machines that take advantage of these unique phenomena And you heard a great example from Chris Monroe this morning at IonQ These machines allows us as software developers to solve difficult problems using a different kind of mathematics quantum math much more efficiently than we he ever could on classical computers And our ambition is simple Quantum computers will allow us to solve some of the most intractable and most valuable computational problems that exist today These new quantum solutions will benefit Americans in ways they might not ever be aware of Globally the race is on to apply quantum computing to problems in transport energy production health science and pharmacology finance and insurance defense and national security And we want our applications to be the first apps in a quantum apps store Looking forward to the kind of quantum computers that are likely 25 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available to become commercially available over the next decade there are broadly three classes of application that have become possible in the near term The first are optimization problems like logistics and transport routing financial portfolio optimization The second is in machine learning where we can accelerate some of the most computationally expensive parts of training and artificial intelligence to detect patterns in large and complex data sets And the third is in chemical simulation where we can use a quantum computer to simulate the behavior of molecules and materials and design new processes around them Across these three applications the potential value to everyday citizens is immense you a concrete example of where this could apply Now let me give QxBranch recently completed a study into quantum computing applications with Merck the pharmaceutical company We worked together to design a quantum algorithm and test it on today's available hardware to look at an approach to optimizing the production of a particular drug And the particular drug that they are interested in has an extremely challenging production optimization process involved And quantum computing gave us the tools to look at the manufacturing process in an entirely different way that could radically change the efficiency of creating this drug and delivering value to the consumer It is an applications such as this that we are focused on at QxBranch 26 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available breakthroughs enabled by a new approach in computing that allows us to change the way we think about business and manufacturing processes There are some challenges ahead though in realizing this technology and the Federal Government can help us create the environment for industry to lead The three biggest challenges I would like to highlight today first the skills and workforce As we have heard if we are to be successful at bringing quantum computing to market we need a highly skilled multidisciplinary diverse workforce with core skills in quantum information science computer science data analytics machine learning and AI combined with germane expertise in finance pharmaceuticals energy and other industries And we need American universities to send us graduates with these skills The second is an international cooperation As American companies compete in this emerging ecosystem we will achieve our fullest success through international cooperation There is valuable scientific research and engineering development that is being made elsewhere including in key allies such as Australia the U K Canada Japan and Singapore We need to be able to access the best talent and technology globally and this means partnering There will be national security considerations for this technology of course but if export restrictions are applied 27 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available prematurely or without your consideration it will stifle commercial innovation Finally we need to maximize and leverage private sector investment into this technology area Over the past 18 months we have seen an incredible acceleration in corporate R D and venture capital flying into this technology It is an exciting time but I must stress that we are just at the beginning of this technology development And the government can maximize and leverage this investment through targeted Federal funding and coordination to reduce the gaps and overlaps in R D and help accelerate technology So in closing I would like to reiterate my appreciation for the opportunity to join you today and share a little about what we are doing at QxBranch and quantum computing This subcommittee is addressing important issues that will help bring quantum computing to commercial reality and give us a powerful new tool to create valuable software Mr Latta Thank you for your testimony I appreciate all your testimony this morning and that will conclude our witnesses' testimony this morning and we will begin our questioning from the members I will now open with questions with 5 minutes And And pardon my allergies this morning it is this time of year in Washington First I really appreciated reading your testimony last night and a lot of questions in 5 minutes But if I could start Dr Putman 28 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available with you if I may because I really was interested so what impact does quantum computer have on manufacturing in the United States Because like in my district I have a unique district I have 60 000 manufacturing jobs and I also have the largest farm income producing district in the State of Ohio And in your opening statement you had mentioned about on the manufacturing side you talked about with drugs and agriculture energy and this committee deals a lot with all that and not really on the agricultural side but I was really interested in that And I would like to know especially what the impact would be on manufacturing And also am I correct that it would both create new opportunities while disrupting those existing industries that are out there today Mr Putman Thank you Chairman Latta my fellow Ohioan This is of course extremely personal to me as well being from Ohio and being from -- you know creating and trying to enable manufacturing work What is important I think about your question is that these are brand new industries It is not just about disrupting current industries it is been creating jobs that are for the next generation of technologies And this is building I think interesting jobs as well for technologists of the future and that goes through entire large factories I mentioned the cost of a fab It is not just the cost of building a fab we would like to bring down the cost to build fabs 29 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available It is the opportunity for workers to be working with the latest of technologies I think that the Midwest and the rest of the country as a whole can only benefit from this Mr Latta Thank you Dr Monroe what changes would be needed to ensure America has that workforce that is ready for quantum computing revolution You will be hearing from the witnesses you know we have to have that workforce out there in the training So how do we get to that point Do we need on the educational side especially at the university levels do we need university that would specialize that in the field or what do we need to do Mr Monroe Well thank you for the question Chairman Latta There are a number of things that we can do as a country to foster this gap this connection between university and government laboratory research and I said industrial production At the university side I am sorry to say that most engineering and computer science departments haven't really embraced this field as Dr Franklin mentioned Mr Latta Mr Monroe Why Why not Well I have my own thoughts on that I think -- actually my daughter is a computer science major at University of Maryland And the computer science departments -- the students are keen to get a high-paying job right after they graduate Quantum 30 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available computing not that it is not a high paying job but it is a very speculative field marketplace is And it is hard to identify exactly what the And I think -- computer science departments and engineering departments I think they have not embraced this field as much as the sciences have places And I think that is changing at some My university the University of Maryland is one of those Chicago is another There are several across the country that have done that but it is not widespread Many of these departments won't hire faculty that are doing research in this field And I think Dr Franklin mentioned the National Science Foundation is taking an active role in trying to change that by instituting new grant programs that foster the development of quantum computer science for instance So that is on the university side On the industry side it is a tough nut to crack because this new technology as I mentioned involves very exotic type hardware that industry doesn't have so much experience with And it is -- it reminds me of in history in the 1950s when semiconductor devices were being developed and scaled the people who did this over the many decades that gave rise to Moore's law including Gordon Moore who founded who Intel these were not vacuum tube engineers who had instituted the previous generation of computers So it takes time and it takes risk and it takes funding from these corporations to do that 31 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Latta Well thank you very much And my time is about to expire so I am going to yield back and recognize the gentlelady from Illinois the ranking member of the subcommittee for 5 minutes Ms Schakowsky I am starting to understand the much-used phrase taking a quantum leap because really what you are talking about is of all the things that I think we have heard about the most disruptive in a good way and in a challenging way to the future And so I wanted to talk to Dr Franklin about things I think I know more about which is about education And I do want to hear more about EPIC and the things that you are doing But first I want to hear about your efforts with younger students in a minute but I want to first hear about what is happening at the graduate and undergraduate level You know what I am hearing really from all of you is that workforce capacity is really a challenging issue And if we are going to be competitive and if we are going to keep up with countries that are making the EU and also China then we need to get serious about making these public investments But I am wondering if you can talk to me a little bit about the urgent need Ms Franklin Yes So I think Dr Monroe mentioned that computer science hasn't had as much quantum in it And I think it all comes back to those funding lapses because our group and other groups started and the way courses get created is that graduate students get 32 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available trained in a field they go out and become professors create classes and train more students Those students need to be able to have jobs in order to make it worth it for them to take those courses If no Federal funding -- if a program gets canceled and you are two of six and all of the Federal funding goes away and then graduate students get put in other fields you are not going to have an education program and so that is what happened twice is that the Federal funding went completely away for the computer science portion of quantum computing And so groups that were active in getting into the field left the field And so now with this new stack funding and the new EPIC program that we have and we are planning educational initiatives at all levels including tutorials for professionals we have a tutorial in June and a tutorial in October for professors and graduate students who are already in the field who want to transition to quantum computing There is an initiative in the institute for molecular engineering at UChicago that has an undergraduate degree with a quantum track We are partnering with them to create some computer science to add to that hardware track And there is a program -- Ms Schakowsky Is that the quantum engineering degree that you are talking about Ms Franklin Yes engineering degree yes There is a quantum track of the molecular And they also have a program to embed 33 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available graduate students that are working in all areas of quantum with commercial -- with companies And so we are participating in that So we are trying to train other research groups so that they can start doing research in quantum Ms Schakowsky Given the potential it seems to me that we have to have some sort of almost like a moonshot mentality about investment And you are so right about all kinds of research If it is not steady and consistent then you know we either have a brain drain people go elsewhere or that research app grinds a halt But do tell me a bit about some of the things you are working on in the primary and high school level That is also under your bailiwick too right Ms Franklin Right So at the elementary and middle school level we are looking at not doing quantum computing per se but computer science in general because in order to have a quantum computer scientist you need a computer scientist first And so efforts like CSforALL are critical in getting computer science early because in science anyway if a student isn't thinking about becoming a scientist by sixth grade they are statistically very unlikely to become a scientist science And so we believe the same thing may be true for computer So we want to have those initiatives early On the physics side we are looking at what are the aspects of 34 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available quantum computing that are unintuitive when you get there And one of them is this idea of measurement Chris Monroe said that all the operations work fine until you look at them And it is an issue that the measurement device actually perturbs the state For example if you had Matchbox cars and you wanted to see how fast they were going you could put your hand out and feel how hard it hits your hand But now that stopped the car And so this idea that your choice of measurement actually affects the system in quantum computing you have no other choices And For a car you could video it and then calculate which one was faster but we don't have that opportunity in quantum computing And so those sorts of things that are very unintuitive can become intuitive if you just give the right examples at young ages Ms Schakowsky Thank you I am pretty much out of time I yield back Mr Latta Thank you The gentlelady yields lack The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois the vice chairman of the subcommittee for 5 minutes Mr Kinzinger you all for being here Well I thank the chairman for yielding Thank I can understand about 50 percent of the things you say so Mr Brett in your testimony you stated that quantum computers 35 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available will allow us to solve some of the most intractable and valuable computational problems that exist Can you explain how doing so will benefit everyday Americans Mr Brett Thank you Congressman There are some problems in computer science that as we add more variables to them or more factors to them become exponentially more difficult to solve And so that means that the time that is required to solve that problem doubles every time we add a new variable to it And so we can reach a limit of our computational capacity to solve those kinds of problems very very quickly even with circuit computers and cloud computing that is available today So for everyday Americans that are problems like how do we optimize our financial portfolio in our 401 k where the amount of computational work that is required to do that is already immense But if we want to include more factors involved in that and get the most efficiency for our portfolio the scale of computational challenge increases exponentially and so quantum computing can help with that We can take on more complex and more difficult problems and solve them in a much shorter time with a new type of machine Mr Kinzinger Okay Now I am going to be honest Dr Putman I really don't know what I am going to say here so I am going to say it and hopefully you understand the question Okay 36 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available When you measure a qubit it immediately changes its value to either a solid one or zero So as I understand which I don't to manipulate a quantum computer the operator needs to be able to make measurements indirectly without a qubit observing you doing so do you do that How And how does that match the capabilities of classic electronic computers and processors with billions of transistors Mr Putman This is one I feel like I should have one of the quantum computing experts answer This is something that occurs in physics that has been measured for many many years So how it is implemented becomes our greatest challenge and there are several different ways to do it Generally you want to be in a situation where you control the atmosphere It is -- while it is observable in nature it is not as controllable as dealing with information series stringing of zeros and ones which just adds up in sums I think I would like to have someone else explain the actual technology of how it might work Dr Monroe Mr Monroe Sure First I would like to add that you are in good company because Albert Einstein didn't -- he never accepted quantum mechanics He didn't think it was complete Mr Kinzinger you sir So I am basically like Albert Einstein Thank I agree Mr Monroe Analogies do wonders in all of science especially 37 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available in quantum mechanics I agree with Dr Franklin's statement that finding analogies you can teach the concepts to young children in elementary school I totally believe that Here is an analogy for a qubit It is a coin imagine a coin when we flip a coin it is in a definite state all the time but we might not know what it is or want to know all the details but if you think of a coin as being quantum in say both heads and tails at the same time Imagine now it is in a black box and you are not looking at it so it is both heads and tails at the same time but I want to control that coin I want to maybe flip it Let's say it is a weighted coin so it is 90 percent heads and 10 percent tails the odds to be 90 percent tails and 10 percent heads I want to flip Well we can do this from the outside world by just turning the box around in a sense Mr Kinzinger Mr Monroe Actually that makes sense So we don't know what the state was we didn't measure it we didn't betray the quantum system but we controlled it And so to Dr Putman's point this is pretty exotic hardware because the quantum stuff is inside and we have to keep our distance when we control it We have to do things without looking and put quotes What it means is that the system is so extremely well isolated that we don't get the information out So a quantum computation involves 38 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available manipulations like that They can be much more complicated Flip one qubit depending on the state of another for instance without looking -- and it is possible to do that in a very small group set of technologies Then at the end of the day you unveil you open the box and you measure only one state but it could be lots and lots of bits and that one answer could depend on exponentially many paths exponentially many inputs in the device As Mr Brett mentioned this can be put to use for real world problems and logistics and so forth Mr Kinzinger Awesome Well thanks Nice work I yield back Mr Latta That is a large statue of Albert Einstein you know down the street Mr Vice Chairman in front of the State Department So you might get your statue there some time The chair recognizes the gentleman from Kentucky for 5 minutes Mr Guthrie Thank you very much That was a good example it forward I am trying to understand this and move This is kind of in my family I didn't get any of the genetics but have a nephew at the University Chicago in the physics department going to CERN this summer than I am So he is in a different league So some of the discussion we hear is like he and my son talking to each other during Thanksgiving or whatever he is a computer science and math person as well working in Chicago but in the 39 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available financial industry So I guess I am trying to figure out or take in the theory not really theory but the things that you are talking about that is hard to understand and make it to the real world So first Mr Brett I will go to you Can you tell us a little bit about what your company is doing in the financial services area That is where my son is in in algorithms He is in one of the quant guys I guess in hedge funds but how quantum computing would be an improvement over classical computing I guess What difference does this make And what is your firm doing in financial services to be better than what is currently there Mr Brett Thank you Congressman The financial services sector is already a huge user of cloud compute technology So they are using immense amounts of computational work either on public clouds like AWS or Microsoft or their own private service And it is important to understand that quantum computers won't replace classical computers They will exist side by side in the cloud And quantum computers will run some the algorithms that they are most efficient at So in a mixed compute environment of financial services company will run their daily operation around compliance portfolio optimization understanding risks but send some of the algorithms that are in the program to the quantum computer to be most efficiently run 40 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Guthrie So what does that do different In what way I mean how is that Mr Brett So a quantum computer cannot allow us to solve some particular algorithms that cannot be solved on a classical machine in a useful timeframe So we might be able to solve it over many many years or decades even but what if we need the answer today A quantum computer can help give us that speed advantage Mr Guthrie So why wouldn't it completely replace the classical update if it gets to that Mr Brett It is too expensive and also there are some problems that quantum computers can't do So quantum computers aren't particularly good for example at addition or subtraction so we leave those to classical computers to do that work and quantum computers specialize in what they are good at which is optimization problems Mr Guthrie Okay This is a little harder for my mental capacity to understand something that can't do math but can do other things but simple math I guess level So I am at addition subtraction I am not an Einstein like my friend Mr Kinzinger So Dr Putman in your testimony -- I am trying to get back to reality -- you did find the problem scarcity as one that quantum computing could help solve And how might quantum computing disrupt traditional models of how resources are created and distributed in an 41 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available economy Mr Putman Thank you Congressman Often there is an enormous amount of waste in the way that we currently produce anything This is not due to humans caring to produce waste or a problem with this in general it is due to the -- our inability to comprehend and to simulate and to build The more precise we are on a molecular level the better we are at being able to do that The examples that I used such as fertilizer for instance or of material science a classical computer gets very rough examples of how to actually build something and understand what is going on molecularly The more we are able to do that in ways that quantum computing allows the more we can explore the space of possibilities When we explore that space and understand it it gives us a chance to create it This just is not possible with humans alone or with our classic computing systems This applies to many areas that we could go on about Mr Guthrie Mr Putman Okay But certainly in manufacturing it creates an entirely different way of doing manufacturing when we are precise Mr Guthrie Okay When we are doing votes in the cloakroom I am going to let Adam further explain this to me to do that moving forward Thanks So I am willing 42 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available I understand it is just such a difficult concept for people not in your space to understand but it is exciting stuff 30 seconds I have about But Dr Monroe I know Dr Putman mentioned about qubits how many in quantum computers But here is a question is what is the signal-to-noise ratio per qubits For which I mean how many qubits does one need for a useful quantum computer And of those how many would actually be performing calculations Mr Monroe Ah thank you for the question I probably won't answer it to your liking Mr Guthrie To my understanding Probably to my liking just not to my understanding Mr Monroe We don't know yet how many qubits are needed for something useful that can displace conventional computers However a relatively small number of about 75 or 100 qubits is enough to show certain very esoteric and narrow maybe not useful problems can be solved that cannot be solved using conventional computers doesn't mean they are useful That And so it is sort of a proof of principle and that is going to happen very soon But then the question after that happens once we are beyond that milepost the idea is to find something useful And I think the only way to find something useful is to put these devices in the hands of people that don't know or care what is inside the devices sort of like my smartphone I don't really 43 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available want to know what is inside And to build these devices I use the word exotic a lot it is exotic hardware to build these devices takes a new generation of engineers It And it may be that we need hundreds it may be that we need thousands or more of these qubits for something useful Mr Guthrie Mr Latta Thank you Thank you I yield back The gentleman yields back The chair recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts for 5 minutes Mr Kennedy Thank you Mr Chairman this important hearing here Thank you for calling Thank you to our panelists today for being From what I can tell all of you clearly believe in the future of quantum computing that is great Still there are some very smart people out there who are skeptical that quantum computing won't ever become a practical reality They say for instance that quantum computers are too unstable and error-prone to be harnessed for real world problem-solving Dr Franklin and anybody else who wants to comment on this how do you respond to those skeptics And what do you see as the biggest hurdles to a real world application for quantum computing Ms Franklin Well I think that if we made decisions based on that assumption then we clearly won't build a quantum computer And if we are wrong the stakes are far too high because other countries 44 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available will make one and then our -- they will be able to decrypt all of the message -- there are so many advantages if it can be realized that we don't want to be the ones who decide early and then are wrong And we are making great strides Yes right now quantum computers are very small and very error-prone And so physicists like Dr Monroe are working on making them more stable larger longer running in between And then there is the piece It used to be that classical computers were very large in size but very few bits and couldn't do very much I mean what we could do in the 1980s in supercomputers is on your smartphone now And so we don't know what can be done and we need to put the resources in to see where we can go because the stakes are just too high Mr Kennedy Mr Monroe Dr Monroe I would add on to that I think the question the same technology we used to build quantum computers is also used for quantum communication and quantum sensors And these are real-world applications that can be and are deployed right now On the sensor side the ability to be detect signals remotely the optical techniques or to detect mass which means if you are underwater you need to know where you are to navigate If you are exploring for oil you need to know what is underneath the rock it oil Is it water Is Those sensors the limiting signal to noise in 45 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available those sensors is given by quantum quantum mechanics we actually exceed those seemingly fundamental limits in some cases And that -- I mention this because that same type of technology is used in quantum computers So I am not -- I do believe that quantum computers are most disruptive of all these technologies but along the path toward that there will be other spinoffs Quantum communication is largely photonic optics as we communicate now over long distance particles of light photons You can also do this with single And photons can -- these are wonderful quantum bits that can be used for quantum computing in some cases but they can also be used to send data in ways that are hack-proof If somebody tries to observe it they change it they can cut the line always they destroy your communication but they can't intercept it and understand it So what does that have to do with quantum computing If you are going to build a big quantum computer it is going to be a network It is going to have probably optics that fiberize little modules on a computer And all of this hardware -- none of this hardware really exists today to couple those photons to quantum memories in qubits I would hang my hat on quantum computing being the most disruptive of all of them but along the way many other technologies related Mr Kennedy Dr Franklin you started to get into something 46 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available that I wanted to ask -- have got about 1 minute and 15 seconds left or so -- encryption and the application of quantum computing to encryption and the potential for it to render in encryption obsolete Can you talk me through that and what is the reality of that Ms Franklin Yeah so encryption is all based on the idea that doing one operation is much harder than undoing it It is a lot easier to multiply two numbers than it is to divide or factor a number And so there is a quantum computing algorithm that actually takes a lot this and so that is not one of the near-term applications but that makes it so that factoring the very numbers that are used to create those keys that make it -- that are required to encrypt and decrypt can be broken down very easily to their components and their components are necessary to decrypt And so if we get a quantum computer of that size we are going to have to figure out completely new encryption algorithms that use mathematical functions that is a quantum computer cannot do quickly Mr Kennedy And is that time horizon is that -- can you put a time horizon that actually takes a lot on that Ms Franklin Mr Monroe out of there Chris So this factoring problem it is among the hardest You probably need tens of thousands of qubits quanta bits and millions or more maybe even billions of operations I will 47 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available say however the problem is so important that you need to know -- you don't want -- you don't want a quantum computer just to break messages You want to know when one exists that impacts how you encrypt now We are talking political time scale so if a computer exists in 30 years that could impact how you encrypt things now so you may want to be ahead of game and change the encryption standards based on when a quantum computer will exists and it is very very hard to predict 30 years in the future what technology will bring us Mr Kennedy If you can predict what is going to happen tomorrow we should hang out more Mr Latta Thanks very much The gentleman yields back gentleman from Florida for 5 minutes I yield back The chair recognizes the 48 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available RPTR ALLDRIDGE EDTR SECKMAN 10 14 a m Mr Bilirakis appreciate it Thank you Thank you Mr Chairman I I will be as brief as I can to get everyone else in Mr Brett in your testimony you identify three classes of applications that are possible in the near term and I know you talked about these earlier Can you briefly explain why you expect those to be the most possible in the near term Mr Brett Thank you for the question Congressman With the earliest quantum computers like the type that Chris Monroe is building at the moment the first versions of these won't have error correction on them And so the kind of applications that we can build need to able to accommodate errors and the potential imprecisions that come along with that And so the kind of the applications that are best suited to early stage quantum computers are those which are the most tolerant or resilient to error And those are things like optimization problems working with chemical simulation and machine-learning-type problems because the kind of algorithms we run on there are based on probabilities And so we already get a probabilistic-type answer from classical computers out 49 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available of that and a quantum computer best matches what is possible there So the early stage applications are those that are more probabilistic more resilient to error And then as the computers become more capable and better we will be able to take on the harder type problems that require error correction around that Mr Bilirakis Okay Thank you This next question is for the panel Will quantum computers be something that anyone can use which is important or will it require a highly sensitive operating environment such as that only a handful would be able to operate Why don't we start from over here from afar please Mr Putnam Thank you Congressman It has to be something that has user interfaces that are possible for everyone in order for it to be incredibly relevant The physics and the hardware behind it just like the hardware and the physics behind everything else we do will have a lot of specialists involved with it But it is important for us it is a challenge and important for us that this is something that is in the hands of anybody So I think absolutely Mr Bilirakis So it is not going to require additional training or anything like that -Mr Putnam Well only to the extent that everything we do 50 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available requires some amount of training until it becomes so commonplace that it becomes natural Mr Bilirakis All right Very good If you could comment on that please Mr Monroe Sure Thank you for the question I will be very brief I think the answer is it will be very much like current computers The use of current computers to program in certain language takes some training It will be a different type of a language But the fact that there are individual atoms in the device at the end of the wire will be lost on the user and it should be need to know that They don't They need to know the rules the programming language and what it can solve So I think the answer will be affirmative Mr Bilirakis Ms Franklin One is the hardware Very good Yeah I think there are sort of three levels I mean we are seeing quantum cloud computation so I think it is likely that you won't buy one and maybe have it in your pocket But at least the cloud resources will be there And as a user you may not even know that you are using a quantum algorithm The services that you use will have programmers who have made some of the -- have a combination of quantum algorithms and 51 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available classical algorithms and send that computation to the cloud When you do a Google search something like a hundred programs respond off for that one search to figure out is it an airline is it a mathematical -- you know what -- all these different things In terms of the ability to program it that is where the most work has to come in these is insane Right now the amount of expertise needed to program I mean it is a high level of expertise But that is how it was when the first women programmers were given a spec of the first computer and said Here They did it from the hardware It is very tied to the hardware Program this right That is essential where we are So we need to figure out what are those abstractions that are still useful computingwise but also understandable to people who are the current level of a traditional computer scientist or even an application developer Mr Bilirakis Okay Very good Please Mr Brett Thank you for the question I fully agree with my fellow panelists that we believe that you shouldn't need to have a degree in quantum physics to program a quantum computer And so that is exactly what we are doing at QxBranch is building the software that enables regular software engineers and computer scientists to create applications and to do so without needing 52 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available to know the intricacies of what exactly is happening down at the molecular scale I will also point out that quantum computing is already becoming accessible So in the cloud today IBM for example have released a quantum computer that we can all access It is at IBM com quantum We can go there this afternoon do a short course on quantum computing programming and start to build up that knowledge and understanding of what is possible and start to build those skills for the future Mr Bilirakis All right I yield back Mr Chairman Mr Latta Thank you Very good I appreciate it The gentleman yields back And the chair now recognizes the gentleman from West Virginia for 5 minutes Mr McKinley Thank you Mr Chairman And again thank you for continuing to put before us in our hearings some very provocative thoughts and through this disrupter series We have dealt with over the past 2 years some very curious and innovative and for me as one of two engineers in Congress exciting possibilities where we might go with this So I am fascinated with it but I am also -- I took -- I am sorry that the other side of the aisle didn't show up today But I was curious to hear more of what Kennedy was talking about the skepticism because when I looked a 53 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available little into that there is some skepticism And one of the articles I was reading a couple days ago had to do with reliability of the results So I know from doing my own engineering calculation that we can -- at the end of the day we know whether that result makes sense But what happens when we use quantum computing if we get -- and I think Monroe I think you might have said if they are error prone do we rely on the result How do we question it If we don't -- if we are relying on our computers to give us the answer and then we get the answer how do we know it is wrong Or how do we know it is right because of all the variables that we have -- you have all talked about here Do you want to answer that Mr Monroe Yeah Thank you for the question A very good one I think it speaks to the -- so far the limited research of what a quantum computer is useful for There exists problems like the factoring problem you can easily check it times three Fifteen is equal to five When that 15 is a huge number you can't do it using regular computers but you can do the -- you can multiple your answer together to check and see if it worked Mr McKinley Mr Monroe Talk about encryption Yeah If you can factor large numbers you can break the popular types of encryption algorithms out there now And 54 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available if you think you have a code breaker you can check it quickly And so almost all applications of quantum computers they are either checkable against some standard or they could be better than any classical approach Say for instance in the financial market or some logistics problem where there is a cost function it is in real dollars and you are trying to minimize the cost subject to an uncountable number of constraints and configurations of the marketplace for instance Well if your quantum computer comes up with a potential -- a result that has lower costs than any conventional computer could compute then you found a different solution Mr McKinley Okay Let me just -- a couple quick points here to follow back up I can see there is a lot more -- again fascinating say -- I want to read more I want to This whole idea has triggered me to do a little bit more research in this as well But let's talk about the timetables are -- some elementary units are out there the metric Where is the goal Right now yes there But where we -- what is Where do we want to achieve do we know that we have -- whether we are there And how And secondly with that what is the role of Congress on this Is this just more money into research Or is this -- you talk 55 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available about building plants or facilities so that we could build these qubits Is this what it is Mr Monroe What role is government Well thank you for the question Again I mentioned the idea of a national quantum initiative and the crux of that initiative is to establish indeed a small number of hub laboratories Mr McKinley Mr Monroe They are not new buildings These are hub zones or hub lab -- yeah Yeah Quantum innovation laboratories They could be at existing university Department of Energy or Department of Defense laboratories collaborations with industry hubs where students and industrial players are all in the same sandpit And each of these hubs -- there will be a small number of them -- they would focus on a very particular aspect of quantum information or sensing or quantum computing Maybe develop particular brand of qubit for instance And the point here is to foster the generation a new generation of engineers in that particular technology Industry will be able to connect more vitally with the university and a potential workforce Students could have Mr McKinley Mr Monroe -Are we trying to develop a standard qubit I think it is too early to do that now I think we have several different technologies and they will probably all find 56 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available different uses memory Sort of like now we have a CPU on a computer We have We have -- there are all kinds of different components different hardwares that are good for different things And we will probably see that in quantum as well Mr McKinley Okay Again what is the timetable Ms Franklin Well I think it depends on the application mean encryption might be 30 years off machines now that are growing I But we have got 50 qubit And so these near-term applications like optimization are on the horizon maybe 5 years hardware is coming along very quickly I mean the I think that -- and some software but this is the first I have heard of a software company I am very excited But that middleware That -- there is software that needs to be created that makes it so that algorithms that assume perfect hardware can be modified to use this near-term hardware so that we don't have to wait as long and can help close that gap between the assumptions of the software and the realities of the hardware Dr McKinley Okay Thank you I yield back Mr Latta Thank you The gentleman yields back And the chair recognizes the gentleman from Indiana for 5 minutes Mr Bucshon Well thank you for being here It is a 57 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available fascinating subject I was a surgeon before so I am kind of a scientist you know I am interested in this sophomore at Cornell in computer science My daughter is So she is obviously I am going to take a little different pathway here on questioning and stay away from the technical stuff and go towards research funding And I was on a committee before that had jurisdiction over National Science Foundation I am from Indiana I went to all the universities and talked to the NSF funded researchers And the one thing that I found is -- first of all I support that right of research I am a big supporter One thing I found is if I said Hey tell me why what you are doing should continue to get funding from the National Science Foundation Just a simple question right I found probably 90 percent of the people that I spoke to couldn't in a really tight way explain that way And for me you know they can explain it in complex And I am like Oh yeah I get it But people like me have to explain this to 700 000 people that we represent in a way that if we are going to justify Federal dollars and taxpayer dollars we have to be able to give a so-called elevator speech and say -- and one example I think this is 4 or 5 years ago that was kind of in the press was about a funded researcher -- and this is not a criticism -- that was having seniors play video games And so it got in the press and people said Well why would you 58 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available fund that Well as it turns out it was Alzheimer's research I am saying And very valid very important research You see what But to try to explain that you know when it is written in a line you know government funds video game you know having people be better video game players doesn't play very well and so people like me have a hard time explaining that So I guess what I am getting at is -- and I guess this will be primarily for the people from the universities -- is what is your pitch for more funding for quantum computing That is something you know -- I mean I know that is -- you have already explained it to me and I get it But if we are going to explain it to the broader Members of Congress and our constituents how do we explain that why we should do that Does that make sense Mr Monroe Yeah it does Thank you for the question Congressman Yes I did speak at length about these very targeted type hubs And it should be sort of self-evident what these are about developing technology They are They are more technology centers But there must be an undercurrent of foundational research and this is something the National Science Foundation they are a very 59 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available special agency in that regard Fundamental research is very inefficient and we can never tell what is around the corner And you can never predict what is going to hit and what -Mr Bucshon Mr Monroe Yeah Yeah You don't know what you don't know right That is right And as the Science Foundation takes all-comers and they will have to play an important role in any national quantum initiative in the future because there may be quantum technologies that don't exist now And maybe in 10 years due to some surprise and some weirdo material we see that oh they behave as wonderful qubits So again it is too bad that it is inefficient but the home runs are far reaching and this field will probably rely on those in the coming decades Mr Bucshon Ms Franklin Dr Franklin Yeah you are in the elevator I mean I think -- it depends on how long I think the pitch for quantum computers starts with the killer apps of you know drug design for Alzheimer's right It is projected that 40 percent of the Medicaid budget is going to go towards Alzheimer's by 2040 So I mean these are real problems And if we could model the molecules and figure out exactly how nitrogen gets fixed and put into fertilizer we could have much more lower energy you know food 60 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available production And so these are big deals right And those are things that can't be done with classical computing Then the next step is you have to tie the researchers to those problems conveying And that is what sometimes researchers aren't good at But that is why I do think that the calls -- we are too -- we are at the cusp of commercialization and it might be an appropriate time for even the NSF funding to be looking at the broader impacts more you know So our group is making tools that everyone can use and so that is something that we can hang on to right Mr Bucshon Okay The other thing I am interested in is technology transfer obviously because that is as you know a huge problem not only in this area but across the research fields I mean what percentage of research goes you know that is probably potentially commercially useful It just goes into a black hole And I know I am short on time but maybe Mr Brett you can comment I mean how we can do better on technology transfer because it is a pretty big problem really Mr Brett Thank you Congressman And we agree As a small business that is looking to commercialize some of these innovations how do we get access to some of the great work that is being done at the universities and to incorporate that 61 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available Mr Bucshon Because it is proprietary right sometimes is some of the problem maybe right That People are willing -- if they put the research out there they are worried somebody will steal it so to speak right Mr Brett We found -- an approach that has been particularly successful for us is being able to partner with universities on research grants and so for -- as an R D business to also participate in the collaboration of that research and contribute to the science and the publication around that and share some of that intellectual property on a joint project together And I think that that cross between the commercial sector and the research sector working together on funded proposals will enable a lot of that technology transfer Mr Bucshon Okay My time is up I yield back Mr Latta Well the gentleman yields back And I first want to thank our panel for being here today One of the great things about serving on this committee and because we do have such wide jurisdiction I always say it is like looking over the horizon 5 to 10 years that we hear it here first And we want to make sure that you know our Nation is on that cutting edge And I am going to say something about some of our folks that were asking questions They were a little bit on the modest side I have 62 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available a former Air Force pilot a West Point grad an engineer and cardiothoracic surgeon over here So they are not limited in knowledge But what you gave us today was very very informative because again we have to make sure that as we go forward as a committee that we are making the right decisions as we go on And the gentlelady also would like to make a comment too just want to thank you all So I But I will finish up the ending but I will let the gentlelady right now Ms Schakowksy Thank you China is building a $10 billion quantum lab right now expect to be finished by 2020 And they And the EU is investing about $2 billion in advanced quantum technology So I think one of the answers in terms of why we should be serious about making investments may be decryption is -- and encryption is -- some decades away But from a national security perspective I think that there are a lot of reasons that we should take this seriously and make the investments And of course all the practical things about agriculture and pharmaceuticals et cetera is very very important disease cures But it seems to me that despite maybe some skepticism there is enough evidence right now that this is -- really ought to be an important priority So I just want to thank you very much You really did 63 This is a preliminary unedited transcript The statements within may be inaccurate incomplete or misattributed to the speaker A link to the final official transcript will be posted on the Committee’s website as soon as it is available enlighten me Thank you Mr Latta Thank you The gentlelady yields back And seeing that we have no further members that are going to be asking questions today pursuant to committee rules I remind members that they have 10 business days to submit additional questions for the record And I ask that witnesses submit their responses within 10 business days upon receipt of questions And without objection the subcommittee will stand adjourned Thank you very much for attending today Whereupon at 10 34 a m the subcommittee was adjourned