Five years can make a big difference in an emerging technology.
Opening Day Two of Quantum World Congress 2026 in College Park, MD, Stu Solomon, founder and vice chair of Connected DMV, pointed back to a time when quantum computing still felt like something sitting well over the horizon. The science was extraordinary and the potential enormous, but when that potential might translate into practical impact was far less certain.
Today, Solomon argued, the conversation has changed.
“An industry is taking shape,” Solomon told the crowd, pointing to advances across computing architectures, logical qubits, error correction, networking, sensing, timing and cybersecurity. More importantly, he said, the focus is increasingly moving toward getting those technologies out of the lab and into real-world applications.
That transition from research to application became the theme running through Solomon’s opening remarks. And while Quantum World Congress is being held in College Park, the ecosystem he described stretches across Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
The Questions Around Quantum Are Changing
The question is no longer simply whether researchers can build better quantum computers, sensors or networks.
Increasingly, Solomon said, the questions are: “What can we do with them?” How can they be scaled and secured, and how can an ecosystem be built that translates scientific breakthroughs into economic growth, national security capabilities and improvements in people’s lives?
Those questions also help explain why Quantum World Congress has expanded beyond conversations about the underlying science.
The 2026 event brings together researchers and engineers alongside CEOs, entrepreneurs, investors, government leaders, universities and potential customers. The agenda stretches from fault-tolerant computing and quantum sensing to post-quantum cybersecurity, workforce development, commercialization and the intersection of quantum with artificial intelligence and high-performance computing.
As Solomon put it, “Ultimately the value of quantum will not be measured simply by what we can build, but by what problems we can solve.”
IonQ and Microsoft Put College Park at the Center of the Conversation
There may be no better place to illustrate that shift than the area immediately surrounding the conference.
IonQ, which grew from research with roots at the University of Maryland and Duke University, is headquartered in College Park and has continued expanding its relationship with UMD. The university announced a $7.5 million expansion of that partnership in 2026, funded through Maryland’s Capital of Quantum initiative, to increase quantum computing capacity at UMD’s National Quantum Laboratory, or QLab, while adding a larger focus on quantum networking.
IonQ is also participating in DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, an effort designed to determine whether emerging quantum computing approaches can realistically produce utility-scale machines.
Microsoft is adding another significant presence to the neighborhood.
Jason Zander, executive vice president of Microsoft Discovery & Quantum, spoke during Day Two of Quantum World Congress as Microsoft continues expanding its quantum work in Maryland. The company recently opened a new quantum research center in the University of Maryland’s Discovery District, creating another major research presence within the College Park quantum cluster.
The center includes quantum research and hardware capabilities and expands Microsoft’s collaboration with the university. Microsoft’s quantum program is also connected to DARPA’s efforts to independently evaluate competing approaches to building useful quantum computers.
Together, IonQ, Microsoft, the University of Maryland and DARPA-backed research and testing initiatives are turning College Park into more than the site of a quantum conference. They are making it one of the places where researchers, companies and the federal government are trying to determine what practical quantum technology will actually look like.
Fairfax County Shows Why This Is a Regional Quantum Story
But Solomon was careful not to describe the quantum ecosystem as a Maryland-only story. He highlighted the broader Greater Washington region, which crosses Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, and specifically recognized Fairfax County as a partner in Quantum World Congress from its early days. His point was simple: building a quantum ecosystem cannot stop at a jurisdictional boundary. Fairfax County increasingly has the assets to back that up.
George Mason University is establishing the Virginia Quantum Hub with support from a $3.7 million GO Virginia grant. Announced this week, the hub is intended to bring together research, workforce development, capital and public-private partnerships around quantum technologies. George Mason is also home to the Quantum Science & Engineering Center and launched Virginia’s first master’s degree in quantum science and engineering earlier this year.
Northern Virginia also offers something particularly relevant to the national security side of the quantum conversation: proximity to federal customers, defense and cybersecurity companies, cloud and data infrastructure and a large technical workforce. Fairfax County is already home to quantum-related work by companies including Booz Allen, while newer companies are also choosing the area for the intersection of cybersecurity, emerging technology and federal missions.
That makes the regional approach Solomon described easier to see. College Park may have an unusually concentrated cluster of quantum research and companies, but the larger ecosystem stretches across the Potomac.
“No one builds an ecosystem alone,” Solomon said. “Not a company, not a university, not a government, not even a country.”
Quantum Is Also Getting White House Attention
The federal government is putting considerably more structure around that ecosystem as well.
Michael Kratsios, assistant to the president and director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, delivered a recorded message during Quantum World Congress, underscoring the White House’s attention to the quantum conversation taking place at the event.
That attention has also translated into recent policy.
On June 22, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14413, “Ushering in the Next Frontier of Quantum Innovation.” The order calls for a whole-of-government effort to accelerate quantum computing, sensing and networking and directs Kratsios, as the assistant to the president for science and technology, to coordinate an update of the National Quantum Strategy. It specifically emphasizes commercialization, partnerships with U.S. industry, quantum supply chains and national security applications.
The order also establishes the Quantum Computer for Application Development and Discovery Science, or QC-ADDS, effort, aimed at developing a quantum computer capable of enabling new scientific discovery. Federal agencies are additionally directed to explore applications of quantum computing and accelerate work involving quantum sensors and networks.
A second executive order signed the same day, “Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks,” focuses on the other side of quantum advancement: preparing federal systems and critical infrastructure for the cybersecurity threat posed by future large-scale quantum computers. The order accelerates the federal transition toward NIST-approved post-quantum cryptography standards.
Kratsios has described collaboration between government and the private sector as a central part of the administration’s approach. That policy backdrop makes the conversations happening at Quantum World Congress more consequential.
Quantum Is Becoming an Industry Story
Solomon also highlighted another change taking place beyond the laboratory: quantum is increasingly attracting the infrastructure associated with a developing industry.
Moving extraordinary science into industrial-scale technology, he said, requires sustained investment in engineering, fabrication, infrastructure and manufacturing.
“This is no longer simply a science story,” Solomon said. “It’s an industry story. It’s an investment story. It’s an economic competitive story. It’s a national security story.”
For the national security community, that transition is especially worth watching.
Quantum computing receives much of the attention, but the broader ecosystem includes sensing, networking, cybersecurity, advanced manufacturing and the workforce required to develop and deploy those technologies. Quantum World Congress is also devoting significant attention to post-quantum cybersecurity, which Solomon emphasized as something organizations and governments need to prepare for today rather than treating solely as a future problem.
Increasingly, the pieces of that ecosystem are being assembled across the National Capital Region.
Solomon closed his remarks with essentially the same message with which he began: whatever comes next in quantum will not be built by one breakthrough, one company or one jurisdiction.
“The next chapter will not be written by any single person or institution,” he said. “It will be written by an ecosystem.”
