NSF Selects Five Additional Teams in National Quantum Virtual Laboratory Design Competition

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $20 million to five new research teams to advance the design of the National Quantum Virtual Laboratory (NQVL), bringing the total number of projects to nine. These teams will receive $4 million each over two years to develop specialized resources for quantum sensors, networks, and computers, aiming to create a unified national infrastructure for the sector. This initiative is a critical step in fulfilling the National Quantum Initiative Act and strengthening U.S. leadership in quantum innovation through cross-sector collaboration between academia, government, and industry.

The NSF's latest investment targets the design phase of the NQVL, a program intended to provide nationwide access to specialized quantum development resources. Each of the five newly selected teams will receive $4 million over a two-year period to refine development plans for functional quantum technologies. These projects are designed to bridge the gap between independent research silos by integrating three core pillars—sensors, networks, and computers—into a cohesive system capable of real-world application. The agency anticipates transitioning the first teams from the design phase to the implementation phase later in 2026, contingent upon congressional appropriations.

The selected projects cover a diverse range of technical challenges essential for the maturation of the quantum industry. One team is focused on accelerating fault-tolerant quantum logic by unifying error-correcting codes with hardware and algorithms, while another aims to design a photonic entanglement network that is 100,000 times faster than current systems over a 60-mile range. Additional research focuses include the development of protein-based qubits for sensing inside biological cells, the use of erasure qubits and dynamic circuits to improve superconducting hardware efficiency, and the creation of portable, chip-based quantum sensors for use outside controlled laboratory environments.

This initiative emphasizes a massive collaborative network involving researchers across 20 states and partnerships with several federal agencies, including the Air Force Research Laboratory, NASA, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The private sector is also heavily involved, with more than two dozen U.S. companies, such as Boeing, Honeywell, IonQ, NVIDIA, and Quantinuum, participating to help scale the resulting technologies. Beyond technical development, the NQVL program includes a workforce mandate to co-create quantum science curricula with K-12 teachers and deploy researchers into classrooms to inspire the next generation of STEM professionals.