Quantum computers may one day enable revolutionary advances in fluid dynamics, drug discovery, development of better agricultural fertilizers, improved materials design and other technical areas that are beyond the capabilities of today’s conventional computers. To reach those goals, companies from around the world are pursuing a variety of approaches aimed at developing large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
 

The approaches of over a dozen quantum computing companies are now being evaluated through the Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI), a project of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). According to the agency, QBI “aims to rigorously verify and validate whether any quantum computing approach can achieve utility-scale operation – meaning its computational value exceeds its cost – by the year 2033.”
 

Supporting the effort, a 40-person interdisciplinary research team from the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) has joined the test and evaluation component of QBI, providing unbiased subject-matter experts to work with 13 other research organizations in evaluating the R&D plans of participating quantum computer companies. Through this collaboration, the GTRI team is working with more than 400 other third-party experts on the project.
 

An initial six-month phase of the effort, Stage A, involved 16 companies, which joined two firms from an earlier DARPA initiative. In November 2025, DARPA selected 11 companies to enter Stage B and may still add others. Two companies are currently in Stage C.
 

According to the agency’s announcement, DARPA now expects the participating companies to develop and detail their R&D plans, including identifying and mitigating the associated risks, and specifying the necessary risk-reduction prototypes. Companies successful in Stage B of the effort will be invited to progress to QBI’s final phase, Stage C, in which a test and evaluation team will attempt to determine if the utility-scale quantum computer concepts can actually be constructed as designed and operated as intended.
 

Beyond the fundamental physics issues, building a quantum computer able to take on these tasks will require overcoming a host of challenges including quantum physics but also such areas as advanced networking, integrated optics, facility design, power supplies, supply chain issues, thermal management, and systems engineering. The companies will also have to show that they can generate enough revenue from their quantum computers to justify the investment.
 

“We’re looking at most any kind of challenge you can think of,” said Craig Clark, a principal research scientist who leads the GTRI team, which includes researchers from four of GTRI’s eight laboratories. “It’s a really broad program with a lot of engineering going on. Even though it’s basically a quantum program, there are probably more non-quantum people working on the program than quantum experts.”
 

The GTRI work has involved studying technology development plans from the companies and assessing how they expect to confront the challenges ahead. GTRI researchers are also part of crosscutting tiger teams that are looking at broader issues affecting multiple companies. Participating companies are located in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom in addition to the United States, underscoring the global importance of quantum efforts.
 

QBI is evaluating well-known companies with hundreds of researchers, as well as much smaller startup companies. While the large firms may appear to have big advantages, that may not necessarily be true.
 

“Companies with thousands of employees are working in this program along with companies with 50 employees,” said Adam Meier, a principal research scientist who is part of the GTRI team. 
 

Quantum computers will utilize the special properties of quantum mechanics to tackle computing tasks that are far beyond the capabilities of existing computers that operate using traditional technologies. These new machines will use quantum bits, known as qubits, as their fundamental building blocks. Researchers are pursuing a range of technologies for creating and utilizing these qubits and no dominant architecture has emerged so far. As a result, the companies supported by QBI are pursuing different technologies in their approaches to the quantum challenges ahead, which include high error rates and the need to dramatically scale up the size and complexity of the computers.
 

The QBI evaluations may determine that multiple quantum computer architectures have the potential to blossom over time, each with potentially different advantages. That development cycle has been observed with other advanced technologies, such as microchips.
 

“If reaching this goal can be done once, that may be all that’s needed to change the world in an interesting way,” Meier said. “If that happens, maybe everyone will buy quantum computers from that one company until another company catches up. But potentially another technology might be more useful even if it took longer to develop.”
 

In addition to GTRI, organizations that are part of QBI’s test and evaluation effort include the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS), Apollo Quantum, Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Sandia National Laboratories. 

Writer: John Toon (john.toon@gtri.gatech.edu)
GTRI Communications
Georgia Tech Research Institute
Atlanta, Georgia USA

About the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)
The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 3,000 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $919 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.