Export Controls and Quantum Technologies: Balancing Security and Innovation

Description

Background

Quantum technologies, spanning computing, communications, and sensing, are advancing rapidly and carry significant implications for national security, economic competitiveness, and scientific discovery. In response, governments have expanded their export control toolkit across three principal levers: capital markets, technology transfer controls, and tariff and quota measures that shape the flow of quantum goods and components across borders. Taken together, these authorities reflect a broad and evolving U.S. government strategy to prevent the transfer of sensitive quantum capabilities to adversarial nations.

Challenges facing universities are indicative of broader ecosystem fault points. They house cutting-edge quantum laboratories, attract substantial federal and private funding, and serve as the primary incubators of the workforce and intellectual property that the broader industry depends on. Yet the academic environment—built on openness, international collaboration, and talent mobility—sits in direct tension with deemed export obligations and technology transfer restrictions. Understanding how export controls affect university labs, affiliated startups, and innovation hubs is therefore essential to assessing whether current policy can support, rather than undermine, the scalability of the U.S. quantum ecosystem. Building on existing supply chain analysis, this project will catalogue quantum labs and their key suppliers to examine how export control restrictions ripple through research outputs, technology transfer, and the path from laboratory discovery to deployable systems.

At the same time, overly restrictive controls risk undermining the open research environments and international talent flows that have historically driven breakthroughs in quantum science. Multilateral mechanisms such as the Wassenaar Arrangement have struggled to keep pace with the speed of technological development, and sectors that stand to benefit from quantum computing’s transformative potential face uncertainty about how export restrictions may shape access and adoption. Compliance frameworks and corporate export programs add further regulatory burden on both academic and industry stakeholders as the ecosystem matures.^, As quantum technologies mature, there is an urgent need for policy analysis that examines how current and proposed export controls affect innovation, collaboration, and competitiveness and whether these frameworks can be calibrated to protect security interests without stifling progress. 

Objectives

• Mapping of current U.S. and multilateral export control frameworks applicable to quantum technologies, including BIS rules across capital controls, technology transfer restrictions, and tariff/quota mechanisms, as well as deemed export policies such as the Wassenaar Arrangement
• Analysis of how export controls affect key stakeholders, including university labs and spinoffs, quantum computing firms, and downstream sectors such as healthcare. 
• Assessment of the interplay between export controls and industrial policy, including how the same levers operate across both policy domains. 
• Policy recommendations for calibrating export controls to address the ecosystem vulnerabilities identified in this analysis while preserving innovation pathways. 

Deliverables

• White paper analyzing the current state of quantum technology export controls, stakeholder impacts, and regulatory gaps
• Policy recommendations for harmonizing export control frameworks to balance security and innovation, including workforce, capital, IP, and supplier ecosystem measures. 
• Stakeholder mapping of government agencies, industry actors, and academic institutions affected by quantum export controls. 

Team

Leaders

Lily Bermudez, Aden Klein, Dr. Ken Brown, Dr. Emily Edwards, and Merritt Cahoon