well, good morning. and again, i'd like to welcome you all to the subcommittee on digital congress and consumer protection here on energy and commerce. and as i mentioned, we have another subcommittee that's running right now, so we will have members coming back from the first floor upstairs during the committee from one to the

other. but, again, i do thank you all for being here today, and i will recognize myself for my five-minute opening statement. and, again, welcome to the subcommittee and today's disrupter series hearing examining quantum computing. we continue our disrupter series as we examine emerging technologies, supporting u.s. innovation and jobs. the morning we are discussing the revolutionary technology known as quantum computing. this involves harnessing the power of physics at its most basic level. unlike the computers we are familiar with, we use today, a quantum computer holds the potential to be faster and more powerful. this innovation is expected to change every industry and make problems that are impossible to solve today something that can be solved in a matter of days or weeks. efforts to develop a commercially available and practical quantum computer being

pursued around the world. because of the tremendous costs involved in developing a suitable environment for quantum computer to operate, many of these efforts involve government support. both the european union and china have pledged or already have spent billions to develop a quantum computer. in the united states, development of quantum computer is proceeding at the academic, governmental and private sectors. in addition to the larger technology companies, smaller startups are also leading efforts in this area. we're fortunate to have one of these startups, eye on q, to testify today. although a quantum computer holds a tremendous potential to solve previously noncomputable problems, there are skeptics who question whether it will be possible to ever develop such technology. we look forward to our witnesses giving us their thoughts on this question. on the other hand, some fear that the threat such a computer would pose to a traditional computing model, especially when it comes to encryption and data security, some fear that a

quantum computer would make it nearly impossible to keep future computers secure. data security and privacy are key concerns to this committee. we also look forward to our witnesses addressing this issue, as well. quantum computers hold tremendous potential to help solve problems involving discovery of new drugs, developing more efficient supply chains and logistics operations searching massive data, and developing artificial intelligence. whichever nation first develops a practical quantum computer will have a tremendous advantage over its foreign peers. we hope our witnesses will help us examine the state of the race to develop a quantum computer, and how the united states is doing in that race. this is obviously a very dense subject. we also understand there are several other areas under development, leveraging the principle of quantum mechanics. our goal today is simple. to develop a better understanding of the potential of quantum computers, the obstacles to developing this technology, and what policymakers should be doing to remove barriers and help spur

innovation, competition and ensure a strong and prepared work force for future jobs. as we explore this topic today, again i would like to thank our witnesses for coming to share their expertise on this very complicated and revolutionary technology, and i again appreciate you all being here today. and at this time, i will yield back my time and recognize the gentle lady from illinois, the ranking member of the subcommittee for five minutes. >> well, i want to thank you, mr. chairman. we continue our disrupter series with exploration of quantum computing. i want to congratulate all of you for being so smart. dr. franklin, i was just told that i think it was your mother and i graduated from the university of illinois about the same time. this was the time before we knew anything about computers, really. it was just beginning. and here you are today, the next

generation leading us into -- into the future. so i appreciate all of you being here today. this technology, i understand, is still in the research phase, but the potential applications are tremendous. from health care to energy efficiency and everything in between. given this potential, global competitors from the european union to china are rushing to invest in quantum computing. the u.s. must make strategic investments if it wants to stay ahead. and those investments really start with s.t.e.m. education. we must encourage students, including young women and students of color, to pursue interests in computer science and physics, fostering curiosity today prepares young minds to become great innovators of tomorrow. as a former teacher myself, i strongly believe that our future economic success depends on investing in our children's

education. our research universities are leading the way on quantum computing. public investment is crucial to developing technology until it can be profitably deployed in the private sector. however, the federal government has so far failed to provide robust, reliable investment in quantum computing. the lack of investment in s.t.e.m. education and research speaks to the misguided priorities of this republican congress, while wealthy shareholders get most of the gain from a $2 trillion republican tax bill, congress is underinvesting in students and research institutions. we fund tax cuts for the rich at the expense of our future prosperity. now that congress has passed a budget agreement, we have the chance to make some of the investments that our country so desperately needs. but instead of embracing the opportunity to advance

bipartisan appropriations bills, the republican majority plans to bring up a recision bill to pull back funding for children's health insurance programs and other programs. and today we will be voting on a bill to literally take food out of the mouths of families. we need to get our priorities straight. the u.s. can be a global leader in quantum computing and other ground breaking technologies. but only if we prioritize investment for our future over tax cuts for the wealthy. i look forward to hearing from our panel about the promise of quantum computing. i'll try my best to follow what you're telling me. and the challenges that we face in developing this technology. i'm especially proud to welcome professor diana franklin from the university of chicago, the university of chicago is one of the leaders in quantum computing research.

and i'm eager to hear more about this work. so thank you, chairman. and i yield back. >> thank you very much. the gentle lady yields back. chairman, the full committee has not made it in yet. is there anybody on the republican side wishing to claim his time? if not. at this time, that will conclude the members' opening statements. and we'll get to the real meat of the issue today we want to hear about. and i won't tell you how long ago -- madam ranker, when i took computer science in college -- i probably shouldn't say this. we used punch cards. and tele type machines. so it was a bad -- bad saturday morning when i went back to the computer science department, and you're expecting about that much and came back with that much, and you knew you made a mistake. but i want to thank our witnesses for being with us today, and we're looking forward to your testimony today. and our witnesses will have an opportunity to make five-minute opening statements, and our witnesses today are dr. matthew

putman, founder and ceo of nano electronics. dr. christopher monroe, chief scientist and founder of ionq and professor at the university of maryland. dr. diana franklin, professor and director of computer science at the university of chicago. and mr. michael brett, ceo of q branch. and so again, we appreciate you being here today, and dr. putman, you are recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. if you would, just press that microphone and pull it close to you and we'll get started. thank you. >> well, thank you so much, chairman lata, congresswomen and congressmen. nano triathlonics does not make quantum computers. we're the enablers that with us strive to revolutionize the way information can be transformed. we have provided some of the world's largest companies and smaller entrepreneurial innovators with the tools of modern computation and imaging.

we work with those that build the most advanced materials in micro electronics. nanotronics achieves through the progression of technology. which is through artificially intelligent factories. quantum computing not only promises to break the barriers of encryption. it also breaks some fundamental barriers to human progress. many of our greatest achievements have been characterized in terms of competition and races. often, a technological race appears to be a war of ideologies or of business dominance. with quantum computing, there's an even greater battle. the fight against physical scarcity. there are three areas that we must work together on to win. not only for our nation, but for our humanity. agriculture, new fertilizers can

feet the increasing population of the world while maintaining the diversity of crops. drug discovery. by being able to simulate and produce molecules faster and with greater precision than possible by traditional means. this will not only lead to cures for diseases, but reduce the often financially restrictive experimentation and trials that are required to make even incremental improvements in treatment. materials for power devices from batteries to solar cells. these have been studied for decades, but in many respects, the united states is still early on in this journey. companies are moving with speed and with national support, it's possible that quantum computing can soon reach an inflexion point. the race to achieve a workable quantum computer that can reduce scarcity to this level requires greater national attention than has currently been realized by either the vast majority of companies or of the country as a whole.

the steps to enabling quantum computing will need to involve, one, an effort that funds the creation of factories for new quantum chips. a semiconductor fab for classic computers can cost as much as $20 billion. to a large extent, these fabs are not being built in the united states. we have an opportunity to acknowledge and to change this trend by leading the way in the construction of factories for this next generation of powerful computing. two, artificial intelligence. while quantum computing itself will increase the capabilities of artificial intelligence, the ability to design materials and software for quantum computers themselves will come through the interaction of human and computer agents. understanding such key elements as component design, fabrication conditions and the number of q

bits needed requires collaboration of humans and machines. the number of q bits in a quantum computer is directly related to the number of calculations. a ten cubic quantum computer can produce 1,000 calculations, and a 30 cubic quantum computer can produce 1 billion. millions of q bits are required to achieve the full potential of quantum computing. this exponential growth in q bit calculations is beyond the reach of factories as they are. without the advanced tools of ai for controlling factories, a truly useful quantum computer may not be possible. three, education. we need to develop the expertise required for the multidisciplinary nature of quantum computer science. it's physics, chemistry, mathematics, computer science and application curiosity and expertise are all necessary. we cannot work in isolation. we need to embrace immigration

and welcome strong talent from around the world with expertise in these areas. when we look towards the future, we can see it as a battle of ideologies, of resources, or of technologies. quantum computers encompass all of these, to some extent. quantum mechanics is the basis of universal behavior at the smallest scales, but affects the largest of matter. it's therefore not surprising that harnessing this physical property has such far-reaching implications. because of this, it's important that we view it with the powerful associations that it warrants. with the weight of risk in a fractured world, or of great rewards in a unified one. as we move forward, we see how quantum computing lets us scale in ways that meet not only the needs of industry, but of our country and the world. thank you very much. >> well, thank you for your

testimony this morning. and dr. monroe, you are recognized for five minutes. thank you. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify, mr. chairman. i'm honored to be here for this committee's disrupter series on quantum computing. i am a quantum physicist at the university of maryland and also co founder and chief scientist at ionq, which is a start up company that aims to build and manufacture small quantum computers. i've also worked with the national photonics initiative, which is a collaborative alliance among industry, academic and academics with the interest in developing quantum technology. and with the national photonics initiative, we have promoted the idea of a national quantum initiative, and there is pending legislation in the house science that's coming up in the house science committee. so i have about one minute to define what quantum computers are, and i think i can get to

some of the basics. we know that information is stored in bits, 0s or 1s. the fundamental difference in quantum information, it's stored in quantum bits or q bits. these can be both 0 and 1 at the same time, as long as you don't look. and at the end of the day, you look, and it randomly assumes one of the values. but as long as you don't look, there is a potential for massive parallelism, as you add q bits, you get exponential storage capacity. and because quantum computers only work while you're not looking, it involves quite revolutionary and even exotic hardware to realize this. individual atoms -- that's the technology we use at ionq, super conducting circuits kept at very low temperatures. other competing platforms involve that type of technology. it's very exotic stuff. and i think within the next several years, we are going to

see small quantum computers with up to about 100 quantum bits. which sounds pretty small. but even with 100 quantum bits, it can in a sense deal with information that eclipses that of all the hard drives in the world. and on our way to 1 million q bits where we can do new problems that conventional q bit computers could never tackle, we need to build the small ones first. so in terms of quantum applications, i would say it falls roughly into three categories. there is strong overlaps. in the short-term, quantum sensors can enhance sensitivity to certain measurements that can impact navigation, and it may be in a gps-blind environment and also remote sensing. in the medium term, quantum communication networks may allow the transmission of information that can be provably secure, because remember, quantum information only exists when nobody looks at it. if somebody looks at it, it changes. and that can make communication

inherently secure. in the long-term, probably the most disruptive technology are quantum computers. and quantum computers are not just more powerful computers. they are radically different. they may allow us to solve problems that could never, ever be solved using classic computers. these involve optimization routines that could impact logistics, economic and financial modeling, and also the design of new materials and molecular function that could impact the health sciences and drug delivery, for instance. and even longer-term, quantum computers could be used to do decryption, breaking of popular codes. so there's a security aspect to everything that quantum information touches. now, the challenges are pronounced in this field. there are a few issues. one involving a work force and one involving the marketplace. the work force issue is that universities are chock-full of

students, and faculty that are comfortable with quantum physics, and we do research in the area. but we don't build things that can be used by somebody that doesn't want to or need to know all the details. whereas industry makes those things, but they don't have a quantum engineering work force. the marketplace is also a challenge, because we don't know exactly what the killer app for quantum computers in particular will be. so we have promoted the idea of a national quantum initiative that would establish several large and focused hub labs throughout the country. and other components, as well, including a user access program for existing quantum computers. it is imperative that the u.s. retain its leadership in this technological frontier as we heard from the chairman, there is -- there is concerted efforts in europe and in particular china that is spending lots of very focused investments in this field. so in conclusion, quantum

technology is coming and the u.s. should lead in this next generation of sensors, computers and communication networks. the national quantum initiative provides a framework for implementing a comprehensive quantum initiative across the federal government. thank you, mr. chairman, members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak on quantum technology, and the need for a nationally focused effort to advance quantum information science and technology in the u.s. >> thank you very much. and dr. franklin, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you for the opportunity to testify, mr. chairman, and ranking member schakowsky. i'm honored to be here to offer testimony on the progress of quantum technology. the biggest challenges we are facing in doing so. in my dual roles as director of computer science education at u-chicago s.t.e.m. ed, and a research associate professor in the department of computer science at the university of chicago, i research emerging technologies and computer science education. as lead investigator for quantum education for the epic quantum computing project in the nsf

expeditions in computing program, it is my mission to design and implement educational initiatives at k-12, university and professional venues to develop a quantum computing work force. quantum computing could be a game-changer in promising areas, including drug design and food production. by accelerating reserve time, critical dollars could be saved along with improved quality of life. unlocking the secrets of nitrogen fixation could vastly reduce the energy costs of fertilizer production and food production throughout the world. while the university has historically been on the forefront of computer science and emerging technologies, lapses in academic funding for quantum computer science have allowed global competitors to make great strides, putting the u.s. back ten years from where it could have been in research output and workforce development. in the past 17 years, since the inception of quantum computer science, distinguished from quantum physics and algorithm development, academic funding has only been available for eight of these years.

leading to only ten phd students being trained, rather than a potential of almost 200 students. and no meaningful education programs aimed at this area. as research groups came and went with the funding, post docs were laid off, and graduate students were transitioned. yet universities are critical to commercialization. while companies work individually and compete against each other to produce proprietary tools, academics produce results and tools that all companies can use and improve upon, as well as train experts who can work at companies. they're both necessary for the commercialization of quantum computing. the challenge of bringing quantum computers to the point of usefulness cannot be underestimated, both in building reliable machines and writing software. professor christopher monroe talks about -- knows extensive expertise in the former. i'm here to talk about the increasingly important role the computer scientists must take. historical funding in theoretical software and quantum devices has created a chasm between the software, which

assumes large, perfect hardware, and real hardware that is small and unreliable at this point. nsf has recently recognized this issue, supplementing their hardware initiative quantum leap with a stack program that requires an interdisciplinary team to works to bridge this gap. one gap is in software development. there is a difference between a quantum algorithm and software that can solve a problem. bridging this gap requires interdisciplinary teams. deep expertise is necessary to figure out how to modify software that works in one specific context to another. much more so in quantum computing than in traditional computing. if this were furniture construction, what we have right now is piles of wood, screws and nails. an expert needs to figure out how to use those to create useful furniture. instead, what we want in the future is for nonexperts to be able to go to quantum ikea, get a prefabd kit and easily modify it for their application. this exists for classical computing, but not for quantum computing. another gap is between software and hardware.

current algorithms are written for perfect hardware, but hardware on the horizon is very error-prone. we're on a journey, but we're not there yet. it's like if you met liiculousl planned to prepare a gourmet feel for ten but when you arrived there were only supplies for six. you would need to adjust your plans. current and quantum computers on the horizon can only sustain computation for a limited time and they're small. some modifications can be automated. however, for more advanced modifications, the plan needs to be rethought. thus, some of the specific hardware limitations like the ways in which different technologies tend to introduce errors need to be communicated to the programmers so they can figure out how to adjust their applications. in order to realize quantum computing, federal funding needs to be first and foremost consistent. directed at not just building hardware and developing algorithms, but to interdisciplinary teams that include applications developers and computer scientists.

spread across a range of agencies like nsf, darpa, doe and dod, directed not just as technology development, but to workforce development. so there are more people available to write applications and to perform the engineering work at these companies, and above all, supporting the k-12 s.t.e.m. pipeline to train the next generation of innovators. with the significant investment in hardware, software and workforce development, i am confident that the united states can maintain its dominance in computing. this concludes my remarks. i appreciate this opportunity to speak with subcommittee members, and i am happy to answer any questions you might have. >> well, thank you very much. and mr. brett, you are recognized for five minutes. thank you. >> thank you, chairman lata and ranking member schakowsky and members of this committee. i'm thrilled to be here today to discuss the opportunities and challenges presented by quantum computing. my name is michael brett. i'm the ceo of a company called q branch.

we're based here in washington, d.c., also with teams in australia and the uk. we are data scientists, software engineers and machine learning specialists who design algorithms for challenging data problems. we're at the cutting edge of creating algorithms to detect anomalies and uncover insights that help customers reduce their costs and serve better. data analytics is already a rapidly advancing technology area delivering benefits to people all over the world. what we're particularly excited about what quantum computing can do for our business. as we have heard, quantum computers are not just a faster computer. they enable an entirely different approach to performing calculations. in the realm of quantum physics, there are some incredible and surprising phenomena that if harn evidence could allow us to solve some interesting and practically unsolvable problems. problems like simulating the interaction between molecules, as these molecules grow in size, the computational cost grows

larger. our friends who build hardware are in the process of creating machines that take advantage of these unique phenomena. you had a great example from chris monroe. these machines allow us as software developers to solve difficult problems using a different kind of mathematics, quantum math. much more efficiently than we ever could on classical computers. our ambition is simple. quantum computers will allow us to solve some of the most intractable problems that exist today. these solutions will benefit americans in ways they might not ever be aware of. globally, the race is on to apply quantum computing to problems in transport, energy production, health science and pharmacology, finance and insurance, defense and national security. we want our applications to be the first apps in a quantum app store. looking forward to the kind of quantum computers that are likely to be commercially available over the next decade, there are broadly three classes of application that become possible in the near term.

the first are optimization problems like logistics and transport routing, financial portfolio optimization. the second is in machine learning where we can accelerate the most expensive parts of training and artificial intelligence to detect patterns in large and complex data sets. and the third is in chemical simulation, where we can use the quantum computer to simulate the behavior of molecules and materials, and design new processes around that. across these three applications, the potential value to everyday citizens is immense. and let me give you a concrete example of where this could apply. q branch recently completed a study into quantum computing applications with merck, the pharmaceutical company. we worked together to design an al ga rhythm and test it on today's available hardware to look at an approach at optimizing the production of a particular drug. and the particular drug they are interested in has an extremely challenging production optimization process involved. and quantum computing gave us the tools to look at the manufacturing process in an

entirely different way that could radically change the efficiency of creating this drug and delivering value to the consumer. it's an application such as this that we're focused on at q branch. breakthroughs enabled by a new approach in computing that allow us to change the way we think about business and manufacturing processes. there are some challenges ahead, though, in realizing this technology. and the federal government can help us create the environment for industry to lead. the three biggest challenges i'd like to highlight today are first, the skills and work force. as we have heard, if we're to be successful at bringing quantum computing to market, we need a highly skilled, multidisciplinary, diverse work force with core skills in quantum information science, computer science, data analytics, machine learning and ai, combined with domain expertise in finance, pharmaceuticals and other industries. and we need american universities to send us graduates with these skills. the second is international cooperation. as american companies compete in this emerging ecosystem, we will achieve our fullest success

through international cooperation. there's valuable scientific research in engineering development that's being made elsewhere, including in australia, the uk, canada, and singapore. we need to access the best talent globally, and this means partnering. there will be national security considerations, of course. but if export restrictions are applied prematurely or without due consideration it will stifle innovation. finally, we need to maximize and leverage private sector investment into this technology area. over the past 18 months, we have seen an incredible acceleration in corporate r & d and venture capital that's flown into this technology. it's an exciting time, but i must stress we're just at the beginning of this technology development. and the government can maximize and leverage this investment through targeted federal funding and coordination to reduce the gaps and overlaps in r & d and help accelerate the technology. so in closing, i would like to reiterate my appreciation for the opportunity to join you today, and share a little about

what we're doing at q branch and quantum computing. this subcommittee is addressing important issues that will bring quantum computing to reality and will give us a powerful new tool to create powerful software. >> again, thank you for your testimony. i appreciate all of your testimony this morning, and that will conclude our witnesses' testimony this morning. and we'll begin our questioning from the members. and i will open with a question with five minutes, and pardon my allergies this morning. it's this time of the year in washington. you know, first -- i really appreciated reading your testimony last night, and a lot of questions in five minutes. but if i could start, dr. putman, with you, if i may. because i really was interested what impact quantum computers would have on manufacturing in the united states, because like in my district, i have a unique district. i have 60,000 manufacturing jobs, and i also have the largest farm income producing district in the state of ohio. and in your opening statement, you had mentioned about on the

manufacturing side, you talked about on the -- on -- with drugs and agriculture, energy. and this committee deals a lot with all of that. not really on the agricultural side, but i was really interested in that. and i'd like to know, especially with the impact would be on manufacturing and also am i correct that it would both create new opportunities while disrupting those existing industries that are out there today? >> thank you, chairman lata. my fellow ohioan. this is, of course, extremely personal to me, as well. being from ohio and being from, you know, creating and trying to enable manufacturing work. the what's important, i think, about your question is that these are brand-new industries. it's not just about disrupting current industries. it's about creating jobs that are for the next generation of technologies. and this is building, i think,

interesting jobs, as well, for technologists of the future. and that goes through entire large factories. i mentioned the cost of a fab. it's not just the cost of building a fab. we like to bring down the cost to build fabs. it's the opportunity for workers to be working with the latest of technologies. i think that the midwest and the rest of the country as a whole can only benefit from this. >> well, thank you. dr. monroe, what changes would be needed to ensure america has that work force that is ready for quantum computing revolution? we've been hearing from the witnesses, we have to have that work force out there and the training. so how do we get to that point? do we need to -- on the educational side, especially at the university levels, do we need a university that would specialize in that and in the field? or what do we need to do? >> well, thank you for the question, chairman lata. there are a number of things that we can do as a country to

foster this gap, this connection between university and government laboratory research and as i said, industrial production. and at the university side, i'm sorry to say that most engineering computer science departments haven't really embraced this field, as dr. franklin mentioned. >> why not? >> well, i have my own thoughts on that. i think -- actually, my daughter is a computer science "mainsail" at the university of maryland, and the computer science departments, the students are keen to get a high-paying job right after they graduate. quantum computing, not that it is not a high-paying job but it is a very speculative field. it is hard to identify exactly what the marketplace is, and i think computer science departments and engineering departments, i think they have not embraced this field as much as the sciences have. i think that is changing at some

places. my university, university of maryland is one of those, chicago is another. there are several across the country that have done that, but it is not widespread. many of these departments won't hire faculty that are doing research in this field, and i think dr. franklin mentioned the national science foundation has taken an active role in trying to change that by instituting new grant perhaps that foster the development of quantum computer science, for instance. that's on the university side. on the industry side, it's a tough nut to crack because this new technology, as i mentioned, involves very exotic types of hardware that industry doesn't have so much experience with. it reminds me of in history in the '50s when semi conductor devices were being developed and scaled, that people who did this over the many decades that gave rise to moore's law, including gordon moore who founded intel, these were not vacuum engineers

who instituted the previous generation of computers. so it takes time and it takes risk, and it takes funding from these corporations to do that. >> well, thank you very much. my time is about to expire so i will yield back and recognize the gentle lady from illinois, the ranking member of the subcommittee, for five minutes. >> i'm starting to understand the much-used phrase, taking a quantum leap because really what you are talking about is, of all of the things i think we've heard about, the most disruptive in a good way and in a challenging way to the future. and so i wanted to talk to dr. franklin some things i think i know more about, which is education, and i do want to hear more about epic and the things that you are doing. but first i want to hear about your efforts with younger students in a minute, but i want to first hear about what is

happening at the graduate and undergraduate level. you know, what i'm hearing from all of you is that workforce capacity is really a challenging issue. and if we're going to be competitive and if we're going to keep up with countries that are making, the eu and also china, then we need to get serious about making these public investments. but i am wondering if you can talk to me a little bit about the urgent need? >> yes. so i think dr. monroe mentioned that computer science hasn't had as much quantum in it, and i think it all comes back to those funding lapses, because our group and other groups started, and the way courses get created is that graduate students get trained in a field, they go out and become professors, create classes and train more students. those students need to be able to have jobs in order to make it worth it for them to take those courses. if you -- if no federal funding,

if a program is cancelled in year two of six and all of the federal funding goes away and the graduate students get put in other fields, you're not going to have an education program. that's what has happened twice, is that the federal funding went completely away for the computer science portion of quantum computing, and so groups that were active and getting into the field left the field. and so now with this new stack funding and the new epic program that we have, we are planning educational initiatives at all levels including tutorials for professionals. we have a tutorial in june and a tutorial in october for professors and graduate students who are already in the field who want to transition to quantum computing. there is an initiative in the -- in the institute for molecular engineering at u chicago that has an undergraduate degree with a quantum track. we are partnering with them to create computer science to add to that hardware track.

and there's a program -- >> is that the quantum engineering degree you are talking about? >> yes, there's a quantum track of the molecular engineering degree. they also have a program to imbed graduate students that are working in all areas of quantum with commercial -- with companies. and so we are participating in that. so we're trying to train other research groups so that they can start doing research in quantum. >> you know, given the potential it seems to me that we have to have some sort of almost like a moonshot mentality about investment. and you are so right about all kinds of research. if it is not steady and consistent, then, you know, we either have a brain drain, people go elsewhere, or that research, you know, grinds to a halt. but tell me a bit about some of the things you are working on, the primary and high school level.

that's also under your bailiwick too, right? >> yes, we are looking at not doing quantum computing per se but computer science in general, because to have a quantum computer scientist you need a computer scientist first. efforts to get a computer scientist early. if a student is not thinking about computer science by sixth grade their unlikely to become a scientist. we want to have the initiatives early. on the physics side we are looking at what are the aspects of quantum computing that are unintuitive when you get there. one is the idea of measurement. chris monroe said all operations work fine until you look at them, and it is an issue that the measurement device perturbs the state. if you have matchbox cars and you wanted to see how fast it was going, you could put out your hand to figure out how hard it hit your hand but it stopped the car. the idea that choice of

measurement affects the system, and in quantum computing you have no other choices. those sorts of things that are very unintuitive can become intuitive if you give the right examples at young ages. >> thank you. i'm pretty much out of time. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentle lady yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from illinois, the vice-chairman of the subcommittee, four five minutes. >> thank you for yielding. their for being here. i can understand about 50% of the things you say. so, mr. brett, in your testimony you state quantum computers will allow us to solve some of the most intractable and invaluable computational problems that exist. can you explain how doing so will benefit everyday americans? >> thank you, congressman. there are some problems in computer science that as we add more variables to them or more factors to them become exponentially more difficult to solve. so that means that the time that's required to solve that

problem doubles every time we add a new variable to it. and so we can reach a limit of our computational capacity to solve those kind of problems very, very quickly, even with super computers and the cloud computing that's available today. and so for everyday americans, there are problems like how do we optimize our financial portfolio and our 401(k), where the amount of computational work that's required to do that is already immense, but if we want to include more factors involved in that and get the most efficiency for our portfolio, the scale of computational challenge increases exponentially. so a quantum computer can help with that. we can take on more complex and more difficult problems and solve them in a much shorter time with a new type of machine. >> okay. now, i'm going to be honest, dr. putnam -- or putman, i don't know what i'm going to say here. i'm going to say it and hopefully you understand the question. okay. when you measure a cubit it

immediately changes it value to a solid one or zero. as i understand it, which i don't, to manipulate a quantum computer, the operator needs to be able to make measurements indirectly without a cubit observing you do so. how do you do that and how does that match the capability also of classic electronic computers and processors with billions of tr transistors? >> this is one i feel i should have one of the quantum computing experts answer. this is something that occurs in physics that has been measured for many, many years. so how it is implemented becomes our greatest challenge, and there are several different ways to do it. generally, you want to be in a situation where you control the atmosphere. it is -- while it is observable in nature, it is not as controllable as dealing with

information, various string of zeros and ones, which just adds up in sums. i think i would like to yield to somebody else that could explain the actual technology of how it might work. dr. monroe? >> sure. first, i would like to add you're in good company because albert einstein didn't -- he never accepted quantum accounting. he didn't think it was complete. >> i'm basically like albert einstein? >> yes. >> i agree. >> analogies do wonders in all of science, especially in quantum kinetics. i agree with dr. franklin's statement that finding analogies, you can teach the concepts to young children in elementary school. i totally believe that. here's an analogy for a cubit. it is a coin. imagine a coin, when we flip a coin it is in a definite state all the time but we might not know what it is or want to know all of the details. if you think of a coin as being quantum and saying both heads and tails at the same time,

imagine now it is in a black box and you're not looking at it. so it is both heads and tails at the same time, but i want to control that coin. i want to maybe flip it. let's say it is a weighted coin so it is 90% heads and 10% tails. i want to flip the odds to be 90% tails and 10% heads. well, we can do this from the outside world by just turning the box around in a sense. so we didn't know what the state was, we didn't measure it, we didn't betray the quantum system but controlled it. to dr. putnam's point, this is pretty exotic hardware because the quantum stuff is inside and we have to keep our distance when we control it. we have to do things without looking. what it means is that the system is so extremely well-isolated that we don't get the information out. so a quantum computation involves manipulations like that. they can be much more complicated. flip one cubit, depending on the state of another for instance,

without looking, and it is possible to do that in a very small group set of technologies. then at the end of the day you unveil, you open the box, and you measure only one state, but it could be lots and lots of bits. that one answer can depend on exponentially many paths, exponentially many inputs in the device. as mr. brett mentioned, this can be put to use for real-world problems in logistics and so forth. >> awesome. nice work. i yield back. >> there is a large statue of albert einstein on the street, mr. vice-chairman, in front of the state department, so you might get your statue there some time. the chair recognizes the gentleman from kentucky for five minutes. >> thank you very much. that was a good example trying to understand this and move it forward. this is kind of in my family. i didn't get any of the genetic but i have a nephew at the university of chicago in the

physics department, going to cerne this summer so he's in a different league than i am. some of the discussion here is like he and my son talking at thanksgiving. he is a computer and math person as well, working in chicago but in the financial industry. i guess i'm trying to figure out, taking the things that you are talking about, it is hard to understand to make it to the real world. first, mr. brett, i go to you. can you tell us what your company is doing in the financial services area? that's what my son is in in algorithms, he is one of the guys in hedge funds, but how quantum computing would be an improvement over classical computing in this space? what difference does it make and what is your firm doing in financial services to be better than what is currently there? >> thank you, congressman. the financial services sector is already a huge user of cloud compute technology, so they're using immense amounts of computational work, either on public clouds like aws and microsoft or around their own

private servers. it is important to understand that quantum computers won't replace classical computers. they will exist side by side in the cloud, and quantum computers will run some of the algorithms that they're most efficient at. so in a mixed computing environment of financial services company will run their daily operations around compliance, portfolio optimization, understanding risk, but send some of the algorithms in the program to the quantum computer to be most efficiently run. >> what does it do different? how is that? >> so a quantum computer can allow us to solve some particular algorithms that cannot be solved on a classical machine in a useful time frame. so we might be able to solve it over many, many years or decades even, but what if we need the answer today? a quantum computer can help give us that speed advantage and include that in the end. >> why wouldn't it completely replace the classical if it gets to that? is it too expensive? >> too expensive and also there

are some problems that quantum computers can't do. so quantum computers are particularly good, for example, at addition or subtraction. so we leave those to classical computers to do that work, and quantum computers specialize in what they're good at, which is optimization problems. >> okay. it is hard for my mental capacity to understand, something that can't do math but can do other things. simple math i guess i would say. so i'm at the addition and subtraction level. i'm not an einstein like my friend. dr. putnam, in your testimony i'm starting to get back to reality. you identify the problem of scarcity as one quantum computing can help solve. how might quantum computing disrupt traditional models of how resources are created and distributed in an economy? >> thank you, congressman. often there is an enormous amount of waste in the way that we currently produce anything. this is not due to humans caring to produce waste or a problem

with this in general. it is due to the -- our inability to comprehend and to simulate and to build. the more precise we are on a molecular level, the better we are at being able to do that. the examples that i used such as fertilizer, for instance, or of material science, a classical computer gets very rough examples of how to actually build something and understand what is going on molecularly. the more we are able to do that in ways that quantum computing allows, the more we can explore the space of possibilities. when we explore that space and understand it, it gives us a chance to create it. this just is not possible with humans alone or with our classic computing systems. this applies to many areas that we could go on about.

>> okay. >> but, certainly, in manufacturing it creates an entire different way of doing manufacturing when we are precise. >> okay. during votes in the cloak room i will let adam further explain it to me moving forward. i will do that. thanks. it is a difficult concept for people not in your space to understand but exciting stuff. i only have 30 seconds. dr. monroe, i know dr. putnam mentioned about cubits, how many in quantum computers, but here is the question. what's the signal-to-noise ratio for cubits, by which i mean how many it needed for a useful quantum computer and of those how many would be performing calculations? >> thank you for the question. i probably won't answer it to your liking. >> to my understanding. >> we don't know yet how many cubits are needed for something useful that can displace conventional computers, however, a number -- roughly a small number of about 75 or 100 cubits is enough to show certain very

esoteric and narrow, maybe not useful problems can be solved that cannot be solved using conventional computers. that doesn't mean they're useful. so it is sort of a proof of principle, and that's going to happen very soon. then the question after that happens, once we're beyond that mile post, the idea is to find something useful. i think the only way to find something useful is to put these devices in the hands of people that don't know or care what's inside the devices, sort of like my smartphone. i don't really want to know what's inside. and to build these devices, i use the word exotic a lot. it is exotic hardware. to build these devices takes a new generation of engineers, and it may be we need hundreds, it may be that we need thousands or more of these cubits for something useful. >> thank you. i yield back. >> thank you. the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for calling this important hearing. thank you to our panelists today

for being here. from what i can tell, all of you clearly believe in the future of quantum computing. that's great. still, there are smart people out there who are skeptical that quantum computing will ever become a practical reality. they say, for instance, quantum computers are too unstable to be harnessed for real-world problem solving. dr. franklin and anybody else who wants to comment on this, how do you respond to those skeptics and what do you see as the hurdles for quantum computing? >> i think if we make assumptions based on that we won't build a quantum computer, and if we're wrong the stakes are far too high because other countries will make one, and they will be able to decrypt all of the messages -- you know, there are so many advantages if it can be realized that we don't want to be the ones who decide early and then are wrong. we're making great strides. yes, right now quantum computers are very small and very

error-prone. so physicists like dr. monroe are, working on making them more stable, larger and longer running, and there's the piece in between. it uses to be classical computers were very large in size but very few bits and couldn't do very much. i mean what we could do in the '80s in super computers is on your smartphone now. and so we don't know what can be done, and we need to put the resources in to see where we can go because the stakes are just too high. >> dr. monroe? >> i would add on to that -- thank you for the question -- that the same technology we use to build quantum computers is also used for quantum communication and quantum sensors. and these are real-world applications that are -- can be and are deployed right now. on the sensor side, the ability to detect signals remotely via optical techniques or to detect mass, which means if you are under water you need to know where you are to navigate.

if you are exploring for oil, you need to know what is underneath the rock, is it oil, is it water? those sensors, the limiting signal-to-noise in those sensors is given by quantum, quantum mechanics. we can actually exceed those -- those seemingly fundamental limits in some cases, and that -- i mention this because that same type of technology is used in quantum computers. so i'm not -- i do believe that quantum computers are the most disruptive of all of these technologies, but along the path toward that there will be other spin-offs. quantum communication is largely photonics, optics. as we communicate now over long distances, you can do it with single particles of line, photons. these wonderful quantum bits that can be used for quantum computing in some cases, but they also can be used to send data in ways that are hack proof. if somebody tries to observe it,

they change it, they can cut the line always. they can destroy your communication but they can't intercept it and understand it. so what does that have to do with quantum computing? if you're going to build a big quantum computer, it is going to be a network. it is going to have probably optics that fiberize little modules of quantum computers, and all of this hardware -- none of this hardware exists today to couple the photons to cubits. i would hang my hat on quantum computing being the most disruptive, but along the way other technologies are related. >> dr. franklin, you started to get into something i wanted to ask in my minute and 15 seconds or so, encryption, the potential for it to render encryption obsolete. can you talk me through that and what is the reality of that? >> yes, encryption is based on the idea doing one operation is much harder than undoing it. it is a lot easier to multiply two numbers than it is to divide

or factor a number. and so quantum -- there is a quantum computing algorithm that takes a lot of bits, and so it is not one of the near-term applications, but it makes it so factoring the very numbers that are used to create those keys that make it -- that are required to encrypt or decrypt can be broken down easily to their components, and their components are what are necessary to decrypt. so if we get a quantum computer of that size, we're going to have to figure out new -- completely new encryption algorithms that use mathematical functions that a quantum computer cannot do quickly. >> and is that time horizon, is that -- can you put a time horizon on that? >> i -- yeah, chris. >> so this factoring problem is among the hardest out there. you probably need tens of thousands of cubits, quantum bits, and millions or more, maybe billions of operations. i will say, however, the problem

is so important that you need to know -- you don't want -- you don't want a quantum computer just to break messages. you want to know when one exists. that impacts how you encrypt now. we are talking political time scale, so if a computer exists in 30 years, that could impact how you encrypt things now so you may want to be ahead of the game and change encryption standards based on when a quantum computer will exist, and it is very, very hard to predict 30 years in the future what technology will bring us. >> you can predict what is going to happen tomorrow, we should hang out more. thanks very much. i yield back. >> the gentleman yields back. the chair recognizes the gentleman from florida for five minutes. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate it. i will be as brief as i can to get everyone else in. mr. brett, in your testimony you identify three classes of application that are possible in the near term, and i know you

talked about these earlier. can you briefly explain why you expect those to be the most possible in the near term? >> thank you for the question, congressman. with the earliest quantum computers, like the type that chris monroe is building at the moment, the first versions of these won't have error correction on them. and so the kind of applications that we can build need to be able to accommodate errors and the potential improo situatioec come along with that. so the kind of applications best suited to early stage quantum computers are those most resilient to error, like optimization probabilities, working with machine learning problems. the kind of algorithms we run on there are based on probabilities, and so we already get that type of answer from

classical computers out of that and a quantum computer best matches what is possible. so at the early stage applications are those that are more probablistic, and as computers become better we will be able to take on the harder-type problems that require error correction around that. >> thank you. this next question is for the panel. will quantum computers be something that anyone can use, which is important, or will it require highly-sensitive operating environments such as that only a handful would be able to operate? why don't we start from over here, from afar, please. >> yes, thank you, congressman. it has to be something that has user interfaces that are possible for everyone in order for it to be incredibly relevant. the physics and the hardware behind it, just like the hardware and the physics behind

everything else we do, will have a lot of specialists involved with it, but it is important for us, it is a challenge and important for us that this is something that is in the hands of anybody. so i think absolutely. >> so it is not going to require additional training or anything like that? >> well, only to the extent that everything we do requires some amount of training until it become as so commonplace that it becomes natural. >> all right. very good. if you could comment on that, please? >> sure. thank you for the question. i'll be very brief. i think the answer is it will be very much like current computers. the use of current computers to program in certain language takes some training. it will be a different type of a language, but the fact that there are individual atoms in the device at the end of the wire will be lost on the user, and it should be. they don't need to know that. they need to know the rules, the

programming language and what it can solve. so i think the answer will be affirmative. >> very good. >> yeah, i think there are sort of three levels. one is the hardware. i mean we're seeing quantum cloud computation, so i think it is likely that you won't buy one and maybe have it in your pocket, but at least the cloud resources will be there. and as a user, you may not even know that you're using a quantum algorithm. the services that you use will have programmers who have made some of the quantum -- who have a combination of quantum algorithms and classical algorithms and send that computation to the cloud. when you do a google search, something like 100 perhaps are spawned off for that one search to figure out, you know, is it an airline, is it a mathematical, you know, what are all of these different things. in terms of the ability to program it, that's where the most work has to come in. right now the amount of expertise needed to program these is insane. i mean it is a high level of expertise, but that's how it was when the first women programmers

were given a spec of the first computer and said, here, program this, right? they did it from the hardware. that's essentially where we are. it is very tied to the hardware. so we need to figure out what are those abstractions that are still useful computing wise, but also understandable to the people who are the current level of a traditional compute scientist or even an application developer. >> okay. very good. please. >> thank you nfor the question. i fully agree with my fellow panelists that we believe that you shouldn't need to have a degree in quantum physics to program a quantum computer, and so that's what we're doing at q branch, is building the software that enables regular software engineers and computer scientists to create applications. and to do so without needing to know the sbrintricacies of what happening at the molecular scale. quantum computing is becoming accessible. in the cloud today, ib harks has released a quantum computer we can all access. we can go there this afternoon,

do a short course on quantum computer programming and start to build up the knowledge and understanding of what is possible and start to build the skills for the future. >> very good. i yield back, mr. chairman. appreciate it. >> thank you. the gentleman yields back. the chair now recognizes the gentleman from west virginia for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman. again, thank you for continuing to put before us in our hearings some very provocative thoughts through this disruptive series. we have dealt with over the past two years, very curious and innovative. for me as one of two engineers in congress, it is exciting possibilities where we might go with this. i'm fascinated with it, but i'm also -- i took -- i'm sorry that the other side of the aisle didn't show up today, but i was curious to hear more of what kennedy was talking about, the

scepticism. because when i looked a little into that, there is some scepticism, and one of the article also i was reading a couple of days ago had to do with reliability of the results. so i know from doing my own engineering calculation that we can -- at the end of the day we know whether that result makes sense, but what happens when we use quantum computing if we get -- and i think, monroe, you might have said, they're error-prone. do we rely on the result? how do we question it if we don't -- if we're relying on our computers to give us the answer and then we get the answer, how do we know it is wrong? or how do we know it is right? because of all of the variables that you have all talked about here. you want to answer that? >> yes. thank you for the question. a very good one. i think it speaks to the -- so

far the limited reach of what a quantum computer is useful for. there exists problems, like the factoring problem. you can easily check it. 15 is equal to five times three. when that 15 is a huge number, you can't do it using regular computers but you can multiply your answer together to check and see if it worked. >> talk about encryption. >> yeah. that -- if you can factor large numbers, you can break the popular types of encryption algorithms out there now. if you think you have a code breaker, you can check it quickly. so almost all applications of quantum computers, they're either checkable against some standard or they could be better than any classical approach. say, for instance, in the financial market or some logistics problem where there's a cost function, it is in real dollars and you are trying to minimize the cost subject to an uncountable number of constraints and configurations of the marketplace, for instance. if your quantum computer comes

up with a potential result that has lower cost than any conventional computer could compute, then you found a different solution. >> okay. let me just -- a couple of quick points here to follow back up. i can see there's a lot more -- again, fascinating. i want to read more. this whole idea has triggered me to do a little bit more research in this as well. but let's talk about the time tables. right now, yes, there are some elementary units out there, but where are we -- what's the metric? where's the goal? where do we want to achieve and how do we know whether we're there, and secondly with that, what is the role of congress on this? is this just more money into research or is this -- you talk about building plants or facilities so we can build these cubits. is this what it is? what role is government? >> well, thank you for the

question. again, i mentioned the idea of a national quantum initiative, and the crux of that initiative is to establish, indeed, a small number of hub laboratories. they're not new buildings. >> hub zones or hub labs, yeah. >> quantum innovation laboratories. they could be at existing university, department of energy or department of defense laboratories, collaborations with industry. hubs where students and industrial players are all in the same sand pit, and each of these hubs, there would be a small number of them, would focus on a very particular aspect of quantum information or sensing or quantum computing, maybe develop a particular brand of cubit, for instance. the point here is to foster the generation -- a new generation of engineers in that particular technology. industry will be able to connect more vitally with the university and a potential workforce, students could have -- >> are we trying to develop a standard cubit? >> i think it is too early to do

that now. i think we have several different technologies and that will find different uses. now we have a cpu in the computer, we have memory, there are different components, different hardwares gd for different things. we will probably see that in quantum as well. >> again, what is the timetable? >> well, think it depends on the application encryption might be 30 years off, but we've got 50 cubit machines now that are growing. so the near-term optimization are on the horizon, maybe five years. the hardware is coming along quickly and some software, but this is first i've heard of a software company, i'm very excited. but that middle ware, there's software that needs to be created to make it so algorithms that assume perfect hardware can be modified to use the near-term hardware so we don't have to wait as long and can help close the gap between the assumptions

of the hardware and t-- softwar the realities of the hardware. >> thank you for being here. i was a surgeon before so i'm kind of a scientist, you know. i'm interested in this. my daughter is a sophomore at cornell in computer science, so she is obviously. i'm going to take a little different pathway here on questioning and stay away from the technical stuff and just go towards research funding. i was on a committee before that had jurisdiction over national science foundation, so i'm from indiana, i went to all of the universities and talked to the nsf, funded researchers. one thing that i found is, first of all, i support that. i'm a big supporter of research. one thing i found is if i said, hey, tell me why your -- what you're doing should get "metrofocus"-continget --

should continue to get funding from the national foundation, i found probably 90% of the people i spoke to couldn't in a really tight way explain that. for me, you know, they can explain it in a complex way and i'm like, oh, yeah, i get it, but people like me have to explain it to 700,000 people that we represent in a way that if we're going to justify federal dollars and taxpayer dollars we have to be able to give a so-called elevator speech. one example, i think this is four or five years ago that was kind of in the press, was about a funded researcher -- and this is not a criticism -- that was having seniors play video games. and so it got in the press and people said, why would you fund that? well, as it turns out it was alzheimer's research. okay. you see what i'm saying? and very valid, very important research, but to try to explain that, you know, when it is written in a line, you know, government funds video game, you

know, having people be better video game players. it doesn't play very well. so people like me have a hard time explaining that. so i guess what i'm getting at is -- i guess this will be primarily for the people from the universities -- is what is your pitch for more funding for quantum computing? that is something -- i know you have already explained it to me and i get it, but if we're going to explain it to the broader members of congress and our constituents, how do we explain that, why we should do that? does that make sense? >> yeah, it does. thank you for the question, congressman. yes, i did speak at length about these very-targeted type hubs and it should be sort of self-evident what these are about. they're developing technology, they're more technology centers. but there must be an undercurrent of foundational research, and this is something the national science foundation,

they're a very special agency in that regard. fundamental research is very inefficient, and we can never tell what's around the corner. you can never predict what's going to hit and what -- >> yeah, you don't know what you don't know, right? >> right. >> fundamentally. >> the national science foundation takes all comers, and they will have to play an important role in any national quantum initiative in the future because there may be quantum technologies that don't exist now, and maybe in ten years due to some surprise in some weirdo material we see that, oh, they behave as wonderful cubits. it is too bad it is inefficient, but the home runs are far reaching, and this field will probably rely on those in the coming decades. >> dr. franklin? >> yeah, i mean i think it depends on how long you are in the elevator. i think the pitch for quantum computers starts with the killer apps of, you know, drug design for alzheimer's, right.

it is projected 40% of the medicaid budget is going to go towards alzheimer's by 2040. so these are real problems. if we could model the molecules and figure out exactly how nitrogen gets fixed and put into fertilizer, we could have lower energy. you know, food production. so these are big deals and those are things that can't be done with classical computing. then the next step is you have to tie the researchers to those problems, and that's what sometimes researchers are not good at conveying. that's why i think that the calls -- we are at the cusp of commercialization, and it might be an appropriate time for even the nsf funding to be looking at the broader impacts more. so our group is making tools that everyone can use, and so that's something that we can hang on to. >> okay. the other thing i'm interested this is technology transfer obviously because that is, as you know, a huge problem not only in this area but across the research fields. what percentage of research

goes -- you know, that is probably potentially commercial useful, it just goes into a black hole. i know i'm short on time, but maybe, mr. brett, you could comment, how we can do better on technology transfer? because it is a pretty big problem really. >> thank you, congressman. we agree. as a small business that is looking to commercialize some of these innovations, how do we get access to some of the great work being done at universities and incorporate that. >> because it is proprietary sometimes, maybe that's the problem. if people put their research out there, they're worried somebody will steal it so to speak, right? >> and we've found an approach that's been particularly successful for us is being able to partner with universities on research grants. so as an r&d business, to participate in the collaboration of that research and contribute to the science and the publication around that and share some of that intellectual property on a joint project together. i think that that cross between

the commercial sector and the research sector working together on funded proposals will enable a lot of that technology transfer. >> my time is up. i yield back. >> well, the gentleman yields back. i will first thank our panel for being here today. one of the great things about serving on this committee, because we do have such wide jurisdiction, i always say it is like looking over the horizon five to ten years, that we hear it here first. we want to make sure that, you know, our nation is on that cutting-edge. i am going to say something about some of our folks that were asking questions who are a little on the modest side. we have a former air force pilot, a west point grad, an engineer and a cardiothoracic surgeon over here. so they're not limited in knowledge, but what you gave us today was very, very informative because, again, we have to make sure that as we go forward as a committee that we are making the right decisions as we go on.

>> can i make -- >> yeah. and the gentle lady would also like to make a comment, too. i want to thank you all. i will finish up the ending, but i'll let the gentle lady right now. >> thank you. china is building a $10 billion quantum lab right now, and they expect to be finished by 2020, and the eu is investing about $2 billion in advanced quantum technology. so i think one of the answers in terms of why we should be serious about making investments, maybe decryption and encryption is some decades away, but from a national security perspective i think that there are a lot of reasons that we should take this seriously, make the investments. of course, all of the practical things about agriculture and pharmaceuticals, et cetera, is

very, very important, disease cures. but it seems to me that despite maybe some scepticism there's enough evidence right now that this really ought to be an important priority. so i just want to thank you very much. you really did enlighten me. thank you. >> thank you. the gentle lady yields back. seeing we have no further members that will be asking questions today, pursuant to committee rules i remind members they have ten business days to submit additional questions for the record, and i ask that witnesses submit their response within ten business days upon receipt of questions. without objection, the subcommittee will stand adjourned. thank you very much for attending today.

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which features presentations and discussions by progressive legislators, journalists and organizers. you can also watch online at c-span.org or with the free c-span radio app. and on c-span 2, lawmakers on the house oversight and government reform committee get a progress report on the 2020 census from the acting assistant attorney general for civil rights. we'll show today's hearing starting at 8:00 eastern, again on c-span 2. i approached some abandoned huts, and when i got to the site of the hut a north vietnamese soldier came out of the ground. my guys saw him but it was too late. he threw a hand grenade at me. the hand grenade hit one of the poles in the hut, you know, large oak beam or whatever the wood is there, mahogany beam, and bounced off and then it went off, and it peppered my -- well,

you know, my flack jacket, ripped my -- i had an entrenching tool in the back, a shovel, and it cut the handle off of that and threw me to the ground and my leg, a piece of shrapnel hit my leg. >> watch our five-week series with vietnam war veterans starting on sunday at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. a house subcommittee held a hearing on u.s. southern borden security. it came following reports of a caravan of central american migrants traveling through mexico and headed toward the u.s. southern border. president trump issued a memorandum requesting the deployment of national guard troops to assist federal border patrol agents. witnesses at the hearing included the head of the union representing border patrol agents and director of the texas department of public safety. this is about an hour.