President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders to fast track development of “commercially relevant” quantum computers and to accelerate the timeline to defend the U.S. government against quantum-driven cyberattacks. 

Quantum computers are expected to accelerate drug discovery and materials science and raise the stakes for both cyberattacks and defense.

The first of the orders, issued Monday, calls for the development of “the first-ever quantum computer powerful enough for scientific research” to be situated at the national laboratory by 2028.

The second order, called “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks,” is to accelerate the government’s move to quantum-resistant encryption by 2031, which is a faster timeline than the 2035 deadline set under the Biden administration.

In March, Google called for companies to be ready for post-quantum cryptography by 2029 and to “secure the quantum era before a future quantum computer can break current encryption.”

“We are going to be investing in American quantum leadership like never before,” Trump said in signing the orders. They will allow the president’s Office of Science and Technology Policy to oversee the government agencies’ new quantum projects, including the departments of Commerce, Defense, and Energy, and NASA.

“When President Trump published a letter to me in early 2025, he prioritized quantum as a key industry for America to lead the world alongside AI and nuclear energy,” said Michael Kratsios, the leading adviser to the president on science and technology policy.

Critical details still remain to be ironed out, specifically how the administration defines a quantum computer “powerful enough for scientific research.” That definition will be determined later by the Department of Energy, according to White House officials.

Though quantum computing was seen as a futuristic technology, recent progress has brought it close to commercialization, with several firms going public with it this year.  

Nvidia also recently launched the world’s first open-source AI models to accelerate the path to useful quantum computers, even after CEO Jensen Huang said in 2025 that predicting them to be 15 years away would be “on the early side”.

By the end of the decade, the ultimate goal for these developers is to accomplish fault tolerance, which is to build a machine that can run seamlessly even when its individual parts are disrupted or fail. 

The orders are part of an increasing wave of tech intervention by the Trump administration, which has floated the idea of buying into frontier AI companies and has invested $2 billion in quantum companies and Intel.