Why does the Pentagon want quantum sensors and advanced clocks?

The US Department of Defense plans for quantum computing technology and its related hardware to be incorporated into its military equipment, used for purposes such as intelligence gathering, target identification, keeping machines in sync, and functioning without conventional navigation aids.

The Pentagon has started Farseer, a Defense Innovation Unit project built around advanced quantum sensors and atomic clocks. The July program is aimed at improving assured positioning, navigation, and timing, or A-PNT, across intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance systems.

The clocks in modern ISR systems must be extremely precise because information coming from various sensors has to be correlated properly. Synchronization is critical for communications as well as for military systems functioning in air, ground, maritime, space, and cyberspace domains.

DIU put it this way: “The invisible backbone of modern ISR is absolute precision timing and synchronization, which enables seamless sensor fusion, secure communications, and coordinated multi-domain effects.”

The Pentagon wants quantum hardware to give military sensors more precision with less bulk

Farseer is trying to get around those physical restrictions without lowering what the military expects from its ISR equipment. Quantum sensors can detect extremely small changes in physical conditions, while advanced clocks can keep far more precise time than many traditional alternatives.

The Pentagon is especially interested in getting that performance without loading aircraft, vehicles, ships, missiles, or other systems with oversized equipment.

DIU said, “Quantum sensors and clocks are not beholden to the same fundamental limitations of classical systems, providing a path to simultaneously achieving both high sensitivity and low SWaP.”

Farseer is therefore less about building one giant Pentagon quantum computer and more about putting quantum-based timing and sensing technology into the wider network of machines the military already depends on.

That plan is unfolding while Washington is also arguing over who controls the companies supplying the hardware behind the quantum industry.

A roughly $2 billion takeover involving IonQ (NYSE: IONQ) and semiconductor manufacturer SkyWater Technology (NASDAQ: SKYT) recently created a disagreement between the Pentagon and the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC eventually allowed IonQ to buy SkyWater without the restrictions a senior Defense Department official wanted.

The concern centered on access to SkyWater’s factories. The company is among a small group of American manufacturers able to produce the specialized chips needed by quantum computing businesses.

Pentagon research and engineering undersecretary Emil Michael wanted FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson to make IonQ guarantee that competing companies could continue ordering chips from SkyWater after the takeover.

The vote became unusually important because the FTC had only two commissioners. President Donald Trump fired two Democratic commissioners last year, while another Republican commissioner had already departed. Andrew and Mark ended up on opposite sides, leaving the agency stuck.

IonQ was therefore able to complete the purchase on Friday without accepting the proposed conditions. The company said the acquisition would “accelerate all quantum platforms across the industry.”

IonQ and Sandia are building quantum systems for US national security work

IonQ is also working directly with Sandia National Laboratories under a new memorandum of understanding focused on US national security. The agreement covers joint development of quantum computing and networking technology at New Mexico’s Quantum Demonstration Facility, where government researchers and private companies can work on new systems together.

IonQ Chairman and CEO Niccolo de Masi said, “Big breakthroughs often happen when government and industry work together.” Niccolo added that those partnerships “could help shape the future of quantum technology and play an important role in our economic and national security.”

The companies already have history together. Sandia manufactured the ion traps used in IonQ’s earliest machines. Their new work will include co-designing future quantum technology rather than limiting the relationship to manufacturing individual components.

In 2025, the company announced that it had achieved 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity. This number represents the precision of the two-qubit operations being performed. The higher the percentage value reaches towards 100%, the fewer errors there are in the computation.

IonQ has said users of its technology have recorded performance as high as 20 times that of earlier quantum systems. Companies working with its hardware include Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) through Amazon Web Services, AstraZeneca (NASDAQ: AZN), and NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA).

Sandia and IonQ are now taking that same technology into joint national security development as the Pentagon expands its own use of quantum sensors, clocks, chips, and computing hardware.