The Biden Administration Overreacts Responding to China’s Role in Setting Standards for Quantum Technologies

The Biden administration has overreacted to geopolitical competition with China over setting technical standards for quantum technology. It made a mistake in pushing for a new International Standards Organization (ISO) and International Electromagnetic Commission (IEC) joint technical committee (JTC) on standards for quantum technologies. Quantum technologies are still immature and do not need a new, broad framework as early, targeted standards discussions were already underway elsewhere. Pushing for standards before a technology like quantum is ready may limit how it functions before anyone knows how the technology will evolve and be used. Adding to the controversy, the administration made the U.S. government the lead U.S. representative to this committee. This is a departure from past U.S. policy, where the U.S. private sector typically leads international standards efforts. This points to a breakdown in trust and coordination between U.S. national security officials, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the private sector. This move also raises concerns about the U.S. government's ongoing interest in directly intervening in technical standards—a practice it has criticized China for using to advance political and industrial policies.

Discussions on quantum standards are taking place across various bodies and working groups to address issues as the technology evolves and stakeholders realize standards are needed. Previously, firms, national standards bodies, and other quantum experts were discussing early-stage quantum technology standards issues at ISO/IEC JTC 1 on information technology, which setup working group 14 on quantum computing in 2020. Quantum technology-related discussions were also happening elsewhere in the ISO/IEC (on software engineering and quantum cloud computing services), at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (on quantum technology definitions and performance metrics and benchmarking), and industry-driven consortia like the Quantum Economic Development Corporation. Targeted, early-stage standards discussions (often called pre-standardization) are useful for developing common terminology, definitions, use cases, and measurement and benchmarking tools to at least ensure stakeholders are talking about the same thing and measuring it the same way. For example, it’s not useful to have a half dozen different definitions of what can be considered a “real” quantum computer. The Biden administration’s recent intervention at the ISO/IEC changed this natural standards development process for quantum.

ISO/IEC JTC 1’s working group 14 on quantum technologies was chaired by a Chinese representative. U.S. stakeholders saw nothing problematic with their conduct. However, amidst rising competition with China in quantum technologies, U.S. officials felt compelled to act, believing the government should play a direct role in setting standards—a troubling departure from past U.S policy. As a result, the Biden administration and other government officials, including the British Standards Institute (BSI), supported a broad, new JTC for quantum. As part of this, the Biden administration bypassed the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)—which serves as the official “national standards body” of the United States—and directly engaged Australia, Korea, the United Kingdom, and other countries to get them to encourage their national standards bodies to support a new JTC for quantum technologies.

This is highly unusual. The U.S. standards system is private sector led. ANSI is the national representative to the ISO and IEC. ANSI itself is not a standards-making body but acts as a neutral venue for coordination of standards engagement among U.S. stakeholders, including U.S. government agencies like NIST. By doing this, the Biden administration undermines U.S. engagement at the ISO/IEC, and more broadly leadership on international standards, as it leads to confusing and conflicting messages on the U.S.’s position towards standards for new and emerging technologies like quantum.

This raises the critical question as to who represents and negotiates for the United States at international standards bodies—ANSI and the technical experts in academia and the private sector or potentially politically motivated government officials? In this case, it was likely national security officials that do not understand technical standards and how they’re made. The United States and others have criticized China and others for this type of political interference in technical standards setting, as China’s government uses discriminatory and restrictive technical standards for political, industrial policy, and other objectives.

The Biden administration’s actions bring to life U.S. stakeholders’ concerns about the U.S. National Standards Strategy for Critical and Emerging Technologies and its Implementation Roadmap and how they point toward more direct U.S. government intervention in standards development. These documents reflect a tug-of-war between White House national security council officials and NIST (which is familiar and generally supportive of the U.S. private sector-led approach to standards). In some places, these documents reflect existing U.S. policy in supporting the U.S. private sector-led approach to standards, but elsewhere they reference the government taking a leading role.

The Biden administration’s choice to have NIST lead the U.S.’s technical advisory group (TAG) for the quantum JTC intensified concerns about increased government involvement in standards setting. TAG administrators don’t develop policy positions, but instead rely on member expertise for technical advice. Normally, TAGs are led by the private sector, given their technical expertise. For example, the International Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) is the U.S. TAG for ISO/ISO JTC 1 on information technology, which involves over 1,600 members and experts.

ANSI received responses from both NIST and INCITS in response to its call for proposals from potential U.S. TAGs. Concerns arose about INCITS’s capacity to take on another TAG, its ability to build out its membership of quantum experts, and its fee structure. Typically, federal government agencies only lead TAGs when no private sector entity steps up, as seen with NIST leading the U.S. TAG for TC276 for biotechnology.

NIST, a member of INCITS, knew of INCITS’s intent to apply to be the U.S. TAG for the new JTC on quantum. At this juncture, NIST could have withdrawn its application to defer to the private sector. Alternatively, NIST could have led INCITS’s committee for this work, which would allow it to take on a leading role while still supporting the U.S. private sector-led approach to standards. Yet, NIST did neither. NIST proceeded with its TAG proposal as it wanted direct U.S. government control. This decision raises questions about NIST’s commitment to the U.S. private sector-led standards system. It also raises questions about NIST’s ability to execute this role given its existing budget and personnel constraints.

No doubt, the U.S. government has a legitimate interest and role in quantum technologies. A lot of the early work on quantum technologies has been driven by national metrology institutes (like NIST), academics, and test and research centers (like U.S. national laboratories). There are three core issues for quantum standards—quantum metrology, quantum computing, and post-quantum cryptography. The U.S. government, and NIST’s, role is different in each.

With quantum metrology, NIST has a clear and valuable role in working with U.S. private sector and other stakeholders to develop common terminology and definitions, measurement and benchmarking, and use cases for quantum technologies. For example, properties of trapped ion or superconducting quantum processor chips need to be well defined to build more complex systems out of these core components.

With post-quantum cryptography, NIST is playing a critically important role in helping to solicit, evaluate, and standardize one or more quantum-resistant public-key cryptographic algorithms. However, this does not involve quantum computing technology, per se. It is a cryptographic process. This is one point that confuses government officials.

The problem is that U.S. policymakers are focused on the middle one—quantum computing—where there’s no need for many formal standards yet and no direct role for the U.S. government. Establishing a JTC for quantum technologies is premature. It's like setting up a framework before knowing what it's needed for—putting the cart before the horse, especially since quantum products and services aren't widely available commercially. The private sector is hesitant to invest in standards for immature technologies. The typical reasons for developing technical standards, such as ensuring different companies' products work together (building so-called interoperability, a traditional driver of standards), aren't applicable yet for quantum. For example, it’s not clear whether IBM’s quantum services will need to be interoperable with Amazon, Google, D-Wave, or Microsoft’s quantum computing services. Quantum technologies are a case of trailing-edge standardization, focusing on controls and technical requirements after technologies are deployed, unlike leading-edge standardization such as smartphones, where standards are needed before products can be used.

This is not the first-time distrust and poor coordination between the Biden administration and the private sector have been an issue for quantum technology standards. China wanted the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) to setup a study group for quantum technology standards. China did this, as it has done in other new and emerging technologies like the metaverse, as the ITU is a government-membership based organization, which means governments can push for discussions that are unnecessary, duplicative, and problematic (including from a human rights perspective). In many cases, ITU-based standards discussions for new and emerging technologies are not used as they are not industry driven, and thus, not useful. Standards are voluntary, so countries and firms don’t have to necessarily use what emerges from the ITU process.

Creating duplicative and unnecessary standards discussions at the ITU wastes limited private sector (and government) resources and expertise. Firms divert engineers and other experts from actual research to engage in meetings and discussions. Nevertheless, China does this as it has the resources to push discussions in a direction that favors its firms and technology as it can co-opt ITU standards to try to create market pressure for the standard. Ultimately, the United States and other countries pushed back and delayed China’s efforts at the ITU. It’s important to note the Biden administration did not do this as part of a coordinated plan with the U.S. private sector, which opposed the proposal given they’d have to devote resources engaging in this unnecessary ITU workstream. One estimate found it can cost a company up to $300,000 per year for an engineer to work on international standards. When the ITU’s Quantum Focus Group was finally established in ITU-T in 2019, it was chaired by a U.S. industry representative (from L3Harris) alongside representatives from Russia and China. Both the ISO/IEC and ITU work on quantum standards raises different, but related, concerns about government’’ roles in standards setting and creating duplicative and ineffective workstreams.

The Biden administration’s approach to standards in its effort to compete with China in new and emerging technologies is flawed. Too many U.S. national security officials view standards as a zero-sum, adversarial game in which China is winning, and the United States is losing, rather than as a collaborative effort benefiting stakeholders globally. This is often based on a flawed focus on quantity (in terms of China providing financial incentives for participants to make many low-quality submissions) over quality (in terms of the technical merit of standards submissions). It also ignores the cost of unnecessary and duplicative discussions and the need to understand when standards for new technologies are necessary. Improved communication and coordination with the private sector on international quantum standards are critical to correcting U.S. policy and should be a key part of the implementation roadmap for the U.S. standards s