A quantum computer. The administration of US President Donald Trump has announced sizable spending prorammes for quantum information science and artificial intelligence.Credit: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg/Getty
For much of US science, 2025 was a year of cancelled grants and budget anxiety — but a few fortunate fields came out ahead. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, artificial intelligence and quantum information science have sat at the top of his administration’s scientific priorities. And they don’t seem to be leaving any time soon.
Trump has ordered his advisers to ensure that the nation is “the unrivaled world leader” in AI and quantum information. The subjects are listed first and second on the administration’s list of research and development priorities. And on 11 December, Trump signed an executive order preventing US states from regulating AI, with the goal of speeding the technology’s development.
But some researchers question the effectiveness of the administration’s programmes to promote quantum science and AI. And some argue that the administration’s strategies might be hampered by some of its other policy changes.
Here Nature examines three ways in which the administration aims to move quantum science and AI forwards.
Funding opportunities
Trump’s budget proposal for the NSF in 2026 largely spared quantum science and AI, with a 3% increase in AI funding and a 0.4% increase in spending on quantum science — in contrast to cancelled research grants and proposals for steep cuts in many other areas. And throughout 2025, both the NSF and the Department of Energy (DoE) have announced new investments in AI and quantum science, such as $100 million for AI projects at five US universities.
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Steven Rolston, a quantum physicist at the University of Maryland in College Park and chair of the university’s physics department, says that the disparity between fields is visible there: faculty members in fields such as particle astrophysics face deep uncertainty about how much funding they’ll receive and how often they’ll have to reapply for awards. For quantum research, however, the biggest change is that the grant cycle has slowed down because of a US government shutdown and agency staffing changes. “I sort of have survivor’s guilt here,” Rolston says.
But quantum science and AI have not been immune to grant cuts. According to data from the non-profit website Grant Witness, NSF has cancelled 101 grants that mention ’artificial intelligence’ in their abstracts, and 68 grants that mention ‘quantum’ in their abstracts.
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