Quantum policy at QCE26 ran ahead of the machines

This guide follows 32 talks on quantum policy, standards and business at IEEE Quantum Week 2026 in Toronto. The rules, the funding and the standards are being set well before the machines they govern exist. On Sunday 13 September, Tracey Forrest asked a panel in Toronto whether quantum computing needs its own Asilomar. Forrest works at a Canadian think tank. The name points to a meeting in 1975 where biologists tried to limit their own field, and it became the founding story of scientists who rule on their own risky ideas. Forrest’s question assumed quantum policy is still at that early, self-governing stage. The talks that followed suggest the field left it some time ago. The field around the machines has grown faster than the machines. Many governments now run national quantum plans, and the United States passed its National Quantum Initiative Act in 2018. Start-ups crowd the market. All of it rests on a promise nobody can yet date, a computer big and good enough to do useful work that ordinary ones cannot. The 32 talks covered here point one way. The rules for quantum computing are already being written, years before the machines that would justify them, by…