Not even a subject offered in school when anyone over 40 was working on their four-year degree, quantum computing is one of the most sought after talents today.

As companies push into new technologies, they are finding it harder to identify qualified engineers and researchers. They are also facing tougher immigration rules for foreign-born tech experts and competing with tech centers in other countries, like Montreal, London, Paris and Beijing, writes Cade Metz of the New York Times in Philadelphia Business Journal. 

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International competition is a particularly thorny issue in quantum computing because one of these machines — in theory — could crack the encryption that protects sensitive information inside governments and businesses around the world. If a quantum computer can be built, it will be exponentially more powerful than even today’s supercomputers.

Last month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy invited experts from government, industry and academia to Washington for a daylong policy meeting dedicated to quantum technologies. Several attendees expressed concern that the Trump administration’s immigration policies could affect quantum research in academia and corporations.

It is a greater problem when there are not that many people who understand the technology. In a type of artificial intelligence called deep learning, for example, fewer than 25,000 people, by some estimates, can be considered genuine experts.

The labor pool in quantum computing is even smaller. By some accounts, fewer than 1,000 people in the world can claim to be doing leading research in the field.

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