No Such Agency
Some questions:
Have the NSA so far failed to build a quantum computer?
Have they done so, but not told Trump, because they can't trust him not to be a blabbermouth?
Does Trump know, but has managed to keep his mouth shut?
Bold move, Cotton: Trump administration tells US techies it expects American quantum computer by 2028
President Trump has ordered the development of a quantum computer to ensure that the US maintains a strategic technical advantage, along with a nationwide migration to post-quantum cryptography to protect sensitive data against just such a computer. In an executive order signed Monday, Trump directed various federal agencies to …
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 20:29 GMT DS999
I used to think
The idea that the government had secrets that were so secret (like captured flying saucers in Area 51 or whatever) that even the president wasn't told. Then we got Trump, and I totally believe that those in charge of some secrets would not trust a president to know them.
Even a more "normal" president might not be trusted to keep the secret from his trusted people in his administration, and then the people in charge of alien bodies or hiding the true story of JFK's assassination wouldn't know who all know the secret, and might spread it around on their deathbed or worse publish it in a tell all book.
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Wednesday 24th June 2026 15:46 GMT best-heygman
Re: I used to think
Yeah, also that isn't super hard: First of all, don't tell him stuff he didn't ask for. Which in itself makes it hard to ask questions about stuff he doesn't know exist in the first place. If he asks, only answer the exact question he asked. Can't lie, of course, but now you have created a back and forth that a normal president and staff can very well handle if he really wants to, but Trump doesn't have the attention span for that.
So I'm absolutely sure there is a lot of stuff Trump doesn't know about and the people in charge don't go out of their way to tell him, because he will fuck it up immediately and they only have to keep their mouths shut for two and a half more years.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 20:33 GMT DS999
Re: Dick head
Those are WAY more believable than "I'll cut prices by half, on day one!" and a lot of people believed that. I mean literally, if you can stomach visiting the comments section in some MAGA reddit or whatever you'll see people complaining that prices weren't cut on day one, expected gas prices to be half of what they were under Biden, and so forth. Everyone knows that half of all people are below average intelligence, but what should really scare you is that 16% of people are a full standard deviation below average intelligence! Worse, even before he got Alzheimer's Trump was in that 16%.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 22:19 GMT Michael Strorm
Re: Dick head
We're obviously thinking along the same lines- I already thought that the way it was said and the implied mentality behind it already sounded very reminiscent of a totalitarian state.
Specifically the way that the Great Leader decides that something Will Happen because he says it will, and everyone else- under threat of their lives- has to find some way of actually making that happen, however ludicrous or impossible, or at least ofmaking it appear to be so.
Fortunately for American scientists, Trump is not- yet- in the position he can have them shot for not being able to meet his every whim, though I've no doubt he'd get off on being able to do so and hold that over them if he was.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 19:22 GMT Sproggit
Reality Has Nothing To Do With It
There are at least a couple of high-probability contenders to explain this announcement.
The first one is that President Trump is by now famous for being vulnerable to the "Last Person Who Speaks" - someone gets to buttonhole him on the way out a meeting room, throws in some fawning compliments and makes a bold pitch... and we've all seen how the President can fixate on something when he wants to. The United States lost thirteen sons and daughters because Netanyahu and the Israeli government seized the moment when the President was riding high after the Venezuela operation to sell him on the idea of a war with Iran. Look where the world is now.
The second is that President Trump now has sufficient operating capital, from various other "investment schemes" and "business opportunities" [things like the $TRUMP meme coin, for example] to be able to benefit from strategic investments. We've already seen in his own financial disclosures that the President has invested in companies that he then supports with contracts or similar sponsorship. Of course, that is tip-of-the-iceberg stuff - one of the massive differences between this Administration and the 2016 Administration is that this time around his family members are ostensibly not involved, or working behind the scenes. Which is not to suggest that they did this to avoid controversy:-
https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/06/16/albanias-flamingo-protests-target-donald-trumps-son-in-law
My sense is that out of the range of possible explanations is that the President and or his family might be considering a sizeable financial investment in one or more companies that are about to be the recipient of major federal funding initiatives, intended to yield the outcome of a viable Quantum Computer. A bit like the way that pouring money in to NASA starts a cascade effect because all of the cost-plus contracts with the major players like Boeing then in turn create opportunities for Boeing's suppliers. Very much copying the model that Japan pioneered after World War II.
It's much, much harder to bring forward evidence to support this hunch - which is why I'm being circumspect and careful to suggest that it is, in fact, a hunch. But if there were something I could point to, then it would be the almost complete lack of interest that the President has shown in ANY domestic issue where he is not personally invested.
Farmers driven to bankruptcy because of the soaring price of fertilizer, thanks to the Iran conflict? Nope.
Companies failing because of tariffs? Nope.
Victims of fraud and financial crime? Nope. [He has not only pardoned a number of criminals convicted of financial crimes, he has also waived court demands for restitution to victims.
As a tekkie I genuinely hope that this cross-government initiative yields real results.
As a tax payer I'm quite a bit more suspicious.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 20:31 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Reality Has Nothing To Do With It
> "because Netanyahu and the Israeli government seized the moment when the President was riding high after the Venezuela operation to sell him on the idea of a war with Iran"
That and the fact that the timing provided an oddly-convenient distraction from the Epstein files.
Yes, Bibi had been gagging to do this forever. But that's kind of the point, he'd been "warning" the West that Iran was literally months away from getting The Bomb if they didn't take action for, er... several decades by this point.
Yes, I *can* completely believe that someone like Trump would start a war for that reason alone, especially given that the Trump regime didn't bother to offer any real justification- or attempt to justify it- at all when it started, let alone why they'd done it now.
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Wednesday 24th June 2026 18:24 GMT DS999
Re: Just before elections in 2028
I wish I could upvote that 100 times.
He's been clearly deteriorating over the past year and on some regular infusions - that's the real reason for the bruises on his hand, my dad had EXACTLY the same thing when he was diagnosed with heart failure and getting monthly infusions of some drug to keep his heart pumping better. My dad got the same swollen ankles Trump has the last year or two - that's what happens when your heart isn't pumping too well.
Reportedly Trump can't stand up from a chair without help anymore, based on how long my dad had when he reached that point Trump has less than a year left. But on the other hand he's got access to the best doctors in the world, experimental drugs and so forth so maybe he can hang on longer. If he does I hope the side effects of those experimental drugs make him wish he was dead!
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Wednesday 24th June 2026 02:19 GMT Bebu sa Ware
Re: Just before elections in 2028
"I want to be President for Life.— Again, none of these are going to happen, either."
I don't know given how seedy he's been looking lately, that one might fly.
I guess most of the world's leaders would attend the state funeral if only to piss in his coffin.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 16:56 GMT Cris E
Noble, almost JKF-like
"We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people...We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too."
Oh, wait, that was JFK. Makes me sad to see the decline of rhetoric and higher causes.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 18:15 GMT oldandgrey
Re: Noble, almost JKF-like
Decline, indeed! Have a look at:
https://www.c-span.org/program/white-house-event/pres-trump-signs-executive-orders-on-quantum-technologies/681536
If you make it to the four-minute-mark, that's where the man himself tells us he doesn't know what he's talking about.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 19:44 GMT Michael Strorm
Re: Ah, yes, another unfunded mandate.
You're not supposed to care where the money is coming from, because that's not the point.
You're supposed to care about this wonderful "plan" as long as Trump does, let him bask in its reflected glory for a few days, then forget about it like he does once that has died down, the novelty has worn off and his toddler-like attention span has moved onto the next thing he can bloviate self-glorifying shite about.
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Tuesday 23rd June 2026 20:03 GMT Michael Strorm
"Trump administration tells US techies it expects American quantum computer by 2028"?
"By 2028". That sounds oddly like there might be some particular reason they want... sorry, "expect" (*) it to be done by then?
Anyway, sounds like they might have it ready just in time to run that "utility-scale fusion power plant" they intend breaking ground on by the end of 2026. We're still on-schedule for that to definitely happen, right?
(*) They can "expect" in one hand and shit in the other and see which one fills up faster.
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Wednesday 24th June 2026 09:55 GMT amanfromMars 1
Did you notice ...... ?
The Register asked the White House how much this program is expected to cost, and a spokesperson told us that the agencies involved can use existing funding and coordinate plans with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on how to ultimately fund these projects.
That White House answer is not a valid reply to The Register question. Such normally equates to ..... We haven’t a baldy notion but probably hugely overexpensive with no guarantee nor accountability should it prove impossible for Uncle Sam to exclusively lead with stealthy deliveries aimed at preventing foreign advantage and successful alien competition
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Wednesday 24th June 2026 12:34 GMT Andy The Hat
Re: Did you notice ...... ?
It will be called IQ and have 42 apple cores so be designated "IQ: 42" and will be the biggliest and expensiviest computator ever built. Because we're great at building com..pu-tors ... yes we are ... ours will be the bestiest ... and solid gold because the goldier the better ... and I will have have my name "President D J Trump" above it's designation in blue vinyl ... we found that peeling off another job to save the people money ... see we're saving money already ... It's fully funded and paid for by private individuals ... private people, organised by the OMB - from their donations sloshing around from a small group called "taxpayers" ... I've not heard of them, are they popular?
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