AI & Tech Brief: America’s quantum industrial policy

Ah, the quantum executive order we noted yesterday is already being turned into legislation. Because nothing says 'forward-thinking industrial policy' like codifying a Trump-era directive with a straight face. The Washington Post brief mentions the quantum industry's 'need for a government catalyst' — right, because government has historically been such a swift and efficient catalyst. Nothing says 'quantum leap' like a decade of study commissions and funding debates.

Rep. Pat Harrigan is to be the legislative midwife for this quantum renaissance. No doubt he'll gather dust on a subcommittee for six months while the quantum industry waits for its catalyst — which, in government terms, probably means a report, a roundtable, and a funding bill that gets eaten by a bigger defense package. The executive order itself was unveiled just yesterday, and already we're legislating around it. Speed, thy name is Congress.

Meanwhile, AI regulation remains a spectator sport — no codification of anything related to current frontier models — but quantum, a technology that might have practical applications by 2040, gets its own industrial policy. Perfect timing as always. We're sprinting to build a regulatory framework for a machine we haven't built yet, while the machines already here do whatever they please. But sure, let's codify the quantum catalyst. That'll fix everything.