The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) this week announced a plan to provide $12 million for research in Quantum Information Science (QIS) for fusion energy and plasma science.
"The Department of Energy is proud to support Quantum Information Science research to further our knowledge of fusion energy," said Under Secretary for Science Paul Dabbar. "Research of different forms of energy remains a top priority for the Department, and we look forward to continuing to aid further discoveries made from QIS."
"Quantum Information Science has emerged as an extremely promising area of investigation across a wide range of scientific disciplines," said Dr. Chris Fall, Director of DOE's Office of Science. "This effort will help ensure that U.S. researchers in fusion energy and plasma science remain in the vanguard of this compelling new field."
Research is expected to focus on a range of topics including the design of quantum computing algorithms to solve problems in fusion energy, the development of quantum sensing diagnostics for fusion experiments, and the formation of novel quantum materials using high energy density plasmas.
Universities, nonprofits, private sector companies, and DOE national laboratories are eligible to apply. Funding is to be awarded competitively, based on peer review, and is expected to be in the form of three-year grants ranging from $50,000 to $1 million per year, beginning in the current fiscal year.
Total planned funding will be $12 million over three years, with up to $7 million in Fiscal Year 2020 dollars and outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations.
The DOE Funding Opportunity Announcement, along with a parallel, companion announcement for DOE laboratories, can be found on the funding opportunities page of the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences within DOE's Office of Science.
