How Big Is the Quantum Defence Sector?

The defence money for quantum technology that anyone can check runs to hundreds of millions of dollars a year, not billions. The Pentagon spent about $320 million on quantum research in FY2023, its latest year of actual spending. Its FY2025 request of about $280 million was 0.2 per cent of the $143 billion it asked for research, development, test and evaluation. The biggest number in quantum defence is $151 billion. It is the ceiling on SHIELD, a Missile Defense Agency contract held by more than 2,400 firms, among them IonQ, Infleqtion, Vector Atomic and QuSecure. A ceiling is the most the government may spend across every holder, over a contract that can run to 2035. So far each of the four has a single order of $500, the same token sum almost every holder received for signing on. That gap is why the size of the quantum defence sector gets quoted at anything from a few million dollars to a few billion. Most of those figures are not wrong. They answer different questions, and this guide keeps them apart. The figures that can be checked are modest. Defence took between a quarter and two-fifths of all federal quantum research money…