That’s what the federal government just committed to nine quantum computing companies in a single move. This one sets up a coordinated federal effort — spanning the Department of Energy, the Department of War, and the intelligence community — to build and deploy a scientifically useful quantum computer at a national laboratory, with a hard target of 2028. Earlier this year, engineers achieved the first-ever commercial demonstration of two separate quantum computers connected and working together — talking to each other, sharing the computational load, rather than operating as isolated machines.