DARPA ‘quantum skeptic’ challenges industry: Prove me wrong

WASHINGTON — As entrepreneurs, researchers, and executives gather this week at the Quantum World Congress outside Washington, how can anyone cut through the hype and figure out which nascent technology has real potential? That’s why DARPA has issued an open challenge to anyone developing a quantum computer to submit themselves to rigorous government testing, led by a self-described “quantum skeptic.”

The deadline to submit a brief abstract of one’s project is Sept.19. That date is not negotiable, warned program manager Joe Altepeter, who’s heading what the agency announced in July as the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). Contenders deemed promising will be eligible, for starters, for $1 million to help their testing, but DARPA expects them to be spending that much and more of their own money.

“I have a reputation in the DARPA building as a quantum skeptic,” Altepeter said in an interview with Breaking Defense. “I was definitely the reviewer you absolutely did not want to get on your quantum submission, because I measured my success based on how much money I could save the US taxpayer by not funding dumb quantum ideas — and trust me, there are plenty of dumb quantum ideas to go around.”

But over the last few years, Altepeter told Breaking Defense, he’s come around to the idea that there might be fire somewhere in all this quantum smoke, after all. So he’s prepared to be convinced, and to convince others.

“We’re going to do our best to disprove anybody who steps through our door — we’re going to be skeptical, by design, but we’re also going to be a fair arbiter,” Altepeter said in an interview. “So if you really think you can go the distance and you convince my team, we will be your advocate inside the government, in rooms you can’t go, and say, ‘look, agencies A, B and C, we tried to break it and we failed.’”

That kind of DARPA seal of approval could be a tremendous asset for quantum computing companies — as well as the feedback from the testing process itself. “We offer something to companies that is unique,” Altepeter said. “We are going to build the best verification and validation team in the world for quantum computing, [giving] unbiased feedback on what is right and what is wrong about your approach.”

In the increasingly competitive quantum space, “almost every other player is looking to get rich somehow and has a dog in this fight,” Altepeter said. But on government salaries, “we are definitely not going to get rich,” he noted dryly. “We’re looking for the answer.”

Once a company or research lab submits its abstract, it needs to make an oral presentation to DARPA, one that sounds a lot like a PhD thesis defense. “We want you to come in and have a conversation with us for half a day so we can ask really hard questions and see how you respond,” Altepeter said.

A proposal that passes this gauntlet may receive an Other Transaction Authority (OTA) award of up to $1 million for a six-month review of their concept for the quantum computer they plan to build.

But that’s just “Stage A.” If the proposal survives those six months, it becomes eligible for Stage B, up to $15 million in DARPA funding for a year-long assessment of its R&D plan. Make it through that year, and the proposal will qualify for Stage C: up to $300 million and “an army of engineers” will work “as long as it takes” to validate the design, Altepeter said. DARPA will provide the core of this expertise but is soliciting participants from academia, Energy Department national labs and Federally Funded R&D Centers as well, he said.

“We are building an initiative that could be more than a billion dollars over five years,” Altepeter said. “[But] everything depends on what we find.” If none of the proposals pass muster, he said, “we won’t spend anything.”

Companies that do win DARPA funding should consider an adjunct to their own investments in testing, validation and due diligence, Altepeter emphasized, not a replacement for them.

“We’re only going to play with someone in Stage C if [they’re] spending more than DARPA on this,” he said. “Anybody who’s serious about doing this is already planning on committing huge resources … If they’re not already planning on spending big money, they probably are not serious about this.”

That said, as a fan of the classic Back to the Future movies and their iconic mad scientist inventing time machines in his garage, Altepeter promised, “We will carefully evaluate absolutely every submission, from Doc Brown and from a megacorporation.”

But, he said, “I would be very surprised if Doc Brown makes it very far.”