Energy Department Research Arm Makes Big Bets on Fusion and Quantum

ORLANDO, May 19, 2025 — Quantum computing is coming in a big way, courtesy of an Energy Department research arm.

Speaking at the Fiber Connect conference here, research arm ARPA-E, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, has launched its first applied quantum computing program in Energy Department history, the agency’s director said Tuesday.

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The program, launched this spring, committed $37 million to 10 projects built around quantum algorithms for grid optimization and energy materials research. The agency is seeking to push breakthrough technologies from federal laboratories into commerce.

ARPA-E also committed $135 million to fusion energy over the next 18 months, and the Energy Department followed a November 2025 executive order with $320 million in initial awards for the Genesis Mission, a national AI-for-science platform. 

All three programs sit inside a single strategic push to keep American energy infrastructure ahead of surging AI-driven demand.

The quantum program, called QC3, or Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry, targets superconducting transmission lines, next-generation batteries, and rare-earth-free magnets, which reduce dependence on Chinese-controlled mineral supply chains, for electric motors. 

Conner Prochaska, ARPA-E's Senate-confirmed director, said the agency was established by Congress in 2009 to fund high-risk, high-reward energy research the private sector will not pursue on its own. He called QC3 a direct attempt to turn computing advances into energy infrastructure gains.

Modeled after DARPA, which created the internet

ARPA-E was modeled on DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm credited with developing the internet and GPS. 

One key difference separates them: DARPA builds technology for a defined defense customer, while ARPA-E frequently works without an immediate commercial buyer. 

"We're not researching," Prochaska said of QC3. "We're funding. Take what you've got and put it toward algorithms that matter for energy problems."

Over 12 years, ARPA-E invested $134 million in fusion research, which attracted $1.5 billion in private capital and produced the Fusion Industry Association, a trade group representing commercial fusion developers. The agency will spend $135 million on fusion in the next 18 months.

The Genesis Mission, established by President Donald Trump's November executive order, directs DOE and its 17 national laboratories to build a unified AI platform connecting supercomputers, experimental facilities, and decades of accumulated scientific data.

The Genesis Mission, Prochaska said, draws on decades of DOE scientific data spanning dark matter research and neutrino science, alongside particle accelerators, supercomputers, and national laboratory infrastructure, to build a single unified AI platform connecting those assets for the first time.

Prochaska holds three concurrent DOE roles: ARPA-E director, chief AI officer, and partnerships lead for the Genesis Mission Consortium, the cross-sector body recruiting private companies, universities, and philanthropic organizations into the effort.

Katie Espeseth, vice president of new products at EPB, the Electric Power Board of Chattanooga, Tennessee, a municipally-owned utility that is also operating a commercially available quantum network in the United States, asked Prochaska what failure would cost.

Industries will migrate to foreign jurisdictions governed by competing legal frameworks, he said, if the United States does not build sufficient energy and computing infrastructure. The Genesis Mission, he said, is the mechanism designed to coordinate government, private industry, academia, and philanthropy toward that goal.