The $15.3 Billion Number That Everyone Cites and Nobody Can Verify

Introduction

In October 2023, I was on a call with a European defense ministry official who wanted to discuss quantum threats. Within the first five minutes, he cited it. “China has invested $15.3 billion in quantum technology – nearly double the EU and four times the United States.” He said it with the confidence of someone quoting a law of physics.

I asked where the number came from. He didn’t know. It was just… the number. Everyone knew it.

That $15.3 billion figure has become the anchoring fact of the global quantum race narrative. It appears in reports from CSIS, ITIF, ECIPE, the Belfer Center, and the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. It underpins congressional testimony, NATO briefings, and boardroom presentations. It has been repeated so many times that it has acquired the weight of established fact.

There is just one problem: nobody can verify it, the organization that produced it has never explained how it was derived, and one of China’s most senior quantum physicists says it’s inflated by three to four times.

The real number, the actual amount China has spent on quantum technology across all levels of government, state-owned enterprises, private sector, and military programs – is unknowable. Not uncertain. Not imprecise. Unknowable. And the reasons it’s unknowable tell us more about the quantum race than any dollar figure ever could.

The Anatomy of a Canonical Number

The $15.3 billion figure originates from McKinsey & Company’s Quantum Technology Monitor, first published in its 2022 edition and repeated in subsequent years. McKinsey describes it as “announced government investments” in quantum technology — and to their credit, they caveat it. The reports note “limited data availability on start-up funding in China” and acknowledge that “actual investment is likely higher.”

But the caveats have not traveled with the number. What started as a heavily qualified estimate in a consulting firm’s technology monitor has been laundered through successive citations until it reads as settled fact. CSIS cites McKinsey. ITIF cites McKinsey. ECIPE cites McKinsey. The USCC cites reports that cite McKinsey. The entire Western policy discourse on Chinese quantum investment rests on a single source that has never published its methodology for this specific estimate.

McKinsey’s Quantum Technology Monitor is transparent about its data sources for private investment: PitchBook, Crunchbase, CapitalIQ, and press searches. These are legitimate databases for tracking venture capital and startup funding. But for Chinese government spending, which is the vast majority of the $15.3 billion, the methodology reduces to “press search” and “expert interviews.” That is not a methodology for estimating opaque state spending across multiple funding channels in an authoritarian system. That is journalism. And journalism, however well-intentioned, is not a substitute for audited data that does not exist.

Making matters worse, there appear to be at least three different McKinsey-sourced numbers circulating in the analytical ecosystem:

The $15.3 billion that everyone cites – described as cumulative “announced government investments.”

A $15–25 billion range – referenced in secondary sources as a “rumored” dedicated quantum funding plan embedded in the 14th Five-Year Plan.

And a $150 billion figure – referenced by the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in their December 2024 quantum report as originating from McKinsey, reportedly based on a “non-public 14th Five-Year Plan for Quantum Technology (2021–2025).” MERICS stated bluntly that they “have not been able to verify” this amount or the document it allegedly comes from.

A single analytical source producing estimates that range from $15 billion to $150 billion – a full order of magnitude. This is just providing a menu of numbers for people to select whichever supports their preferred narrative.

The Insider Who Disagrees

The most devastating challenge to the $15.3 billion figure comes not from Western skeptics but from inside China’s quantum establishment itself.

Chao-Yang Lu is a professor of physics at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) and one of Pan Jianwei’s closest collaborators. He is a co-leader of the Jiuzhang photonic quantum computing project and one of the most-cited quantum physicists in the world. He is not a peripheral commentator. He sits at the center of China’s quantum program.

In a 2023 interview with Foreign Policy, Lu said he had “no idea” how the rumor began that China had spent $15 billion on quantum, estimating that “the actual money is maybe 25 percent of that.” The Belfer Center at Harvard characterized his estimate as “perhaps only one-third of the advertised amount.”

If Lu is right, the real figure is somewhere between $3.75 billion and $5 billion — which is in the same general range as U.S. government spending on quantum and dramatically changes the competitive narrative that has driven Western policy discourse.

Now, there is a reasonable counter-argument: Lu’s visibility may be limited to the academic and USTC funding streams. He may not have full insight into what flows through provincial venture funds, state-owned enterprise budgets, military research programs, or the new National Venture Guidance Fund. The total could be higher than he realizes.

But the reverse is equally possible. Lu works at the epicenter of Chinese quantum research – the institution that houses Pan Jianwei’s team, the Jiuzhang and Zuchongzhi projects, and the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences. If anyone outside the Politburo has visibility into the real numbers, it would be someone in his position. The fact that even he disputes the headline figure should give every analyst pause.

Seven Channels, Zero Transparency

The reason China’s quantum investment is unknowable is not simply that the government is secretive. It is that investment flows through at least seven distinct channels, most of which are partially or completely opaque – and which interact in ways that make double-counting, relabeling, and category confusion virtually inevitable.

Channel 1: National Research Programs

China’s quantum research has been funded through a succession of national programs since the early 2000s. The 973 Program (National Basic Research Program) provided foundational funding from 2001. The 863 Program (National High-Technology R&D) supported applied research. The Sci-Tech Innovation 2030 Megaproject for “Quantum Communication and Quantum Computer,” launched under the 13th Five-Year Plan, represents the largest single programmatic commitment – but its budget has never been publicly disclosed. In fact, the project guidelines issued by the Hefei National Lab in 2025 are explicitly marked as not to be publicly reproduced.

The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) funds basic quantum research through competitive grants. The National Key R&D Programs fund applied work. None of these publish comprehensive, quantum-specific budget breakdowns that Western analysts can aggregate.

Channel 2: The National Laboratory

The National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences in Hefei occupies a 37-hectare campus and is the single most cited investment in Chinese quantum technology. The “$10 billion” figure attached to it originates from Chinese provincial media reports in 2017 and has been repeated uncritically ever since. But MERICS could only confirm an initial construction investment of CNY 7 billion (~$1 billion) and found “no public information on its yearly operational budget.” ITIF describes the investment structure differently – “$1 billion for the lab itself, alongside a separate $10 billion investment in key projects such as the Micius satellite and the Beijing-Shanghai backbone”, suggesting that the $10 billion may be an aggregate across multiple programs, not a single facility investment.

Whether the Hefei lab has received $1 billion or $10 billion, a tenfold range, is a question that no Western analyst has been able to resolve with published evidence.

Channel 3: Provincial and Municipal Investment

This is where the accounting gets truly intractable. China’s innovation system is characterized by intense competition among provinces and municipalities, with local government R&D funding accounting for approximately two-thirds of fiscal S&T expenditures. Quantum investment at this level includes:

Anhui Province launched a $1.4 billion Quantum Science and Technology Industry Development Fund in 2017. Hefei’s Angel Fund and Seed Fund have set risk tolerance levels at 40-50% specifically to provide capital for quantum industrialization. The province’s “Quantum Information Thousand Scenarios Action” aims to cultivate 3,000 quantum application scenarios by 2030 – with substantial local government subsidies and SOE co-investment.

Beijing established the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences (BAQIS) in 2017 in collaboration with Peking University, Tsinghua, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By 2019, BAQIS faculty had received 350 million yuan (~$48 million) in government research funding. In January 2024, Baidu donated its entire quantum computing lab and equipment to BAQIS.

Wuhan’s Optics Valley is becoming a hub for photonic and neutral-atom quantum computers, complementing Hefei’s dominance in superconducting systems.

Jinan, Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuxi, and at least 16 other cities have built metropolitan quantum communication networks – each requiring significant municipal investment in infrastructure, equipment procurement, and operational support.

None of these provincial and municipal investments are comprehensively cataloged in any public database. Some may overlap with national programs. Some may be double-counted in aggregate figures. Some may have been announced but never fully disbursed – a well-documented pattern in Chinese government spending.

Channel 4: The National Venture Guidance Fund

In 2025, China established a massive new funding vehicle: the National Venture Guidance Fund, financed through ultra-long-term special government bonds with a total scale approaching 1 trillion yuan (~$138 billion) across all strategic technology sectors.

In December 2025, three regional sub-funds with quantum as a focus area were established:

• Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei: RMB 29.6 billion (quantum computing and sensing)
• Yangtze River Delta: RMB 47.1 billion (quantum communications and applications)
• Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao: RMB 45 billion (commercial products)

The combined RMB 121.8 billion (~$17.5 billion) has been widely reported as “quantum-focused” investment. But these funds cover multiple technology sectors – AI, semiconductors, hydrogen energy, and other strategic technologies alongside quantum. The quantum-specific allocation within these funds has not been disclosed. Reporting the full $17.5 billion as “quantum investment” would be as misleading as reporting the entire U.S. CHIPS and Science Act as “quantum spending” because it mentions quantum in passing.

As of early 2026, these funds had signed 49 sub-fund agreements and announced 27 direct investment projects – but the quantum share of those investments is unknown.

Channel 5: State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs)

SOE investment in quantum represents a massive and almost entirely opaque funding channel.

China Telecom established its Quantum Information Technology Group in Hefei with a 3 billion yuan (~$434 million) initial investment and acquired a controlling 40.43% stake in QuantumCTek. The company has announced plans for CNY 10 billion+ in quantum investments over coming years.

China Mobile launched its own quantum cloud platform (Wuyue), onboarding photonic and trapped-ion hardware from multiple Chinese startups.

China Electronics Technology Group (CETC) operates a quantum cloud computing platform.

Under Anhui’s “Thousand Scenarios” plan, SOEs are being actively encouraged, and in some cases directed, to trial quantum applications, with the enterprises themselves providing much of the demand-side funding. The local government acts as matchmaker between quantum suppliers and SOE customers, with subsidies flowing in both directions.

None of these SOE investments appear in any Western tracking database. They do not show up in PitchBook or Crunchbase. They may or may not be included in McKinsey’s $15.3 billion. Nobody knows.

Channel 6: Private Sector

Ironically, this is the most transparent channel – and it reveals how small private quantum investment in China actually is.

RAND’s 2022 assessment found only $44 million in Chinese quantum startup capital, compared to $1.28 billion for U.S. startups. McKinsey’s 2023 data showed U.S. private quantum investment at roughly 10x China’s. Between 2001 and 2022, Chinese quantum startups received under $500 million total from private investors.

The key private players include:

Origin Quantum has raised between $165 million (PitchBook) and $294 million (Quantum Zeitgeist) — the discrepancy itself illustrating data quality challenges. Its $148 million Series B was led by the Anhui provincial government and Chinese Academy of Sciences, blurring the line between “private” and “public” investment. An anticipated STAR Market IPO values the company at approximately ¥6.9 billion (~$950 million).

QuantumCTek went public on the STAR Market in July 2020, China’s first quantum IPO, with shares surging 924% on the first day. It is now controlled by China Telecom.

CIQTEK received STAR Market IPO approval in December 2025 at an implied valuation of ~¥11.7 billion, specializing in quantum instruments and sensing.

Meanwhile, China’s tech giants have retreated. Alibaba shuttered its quantum lab in November 2023, donating equipment to Zhejiang University. ChinaTalk reported that Alibaba’s quantum investments “reportedly totaled over 10 billion USD” – though this is unverified and, if true, would represent a staggering write-off. Baidu followed in January 2024, handing its lab to BAQIS. Tencent and Huawei have scaled back quantum activities. As the CSIS roundtable noted, even before these exits, the Chinese hyperscalers’ “publicly announced investment was a fraction of what has been invested in the U.S. and major allies.”

Channel 7: Military and Intelligence

This channel is completely opaque – and potentially the most significant.

Pan Jianwei told local officials that quantum metrology developed at the national lab “would be of immediate use to the armed forces.” The Academy of Military Sciences has described quantum technology as a “bolting dark horse” poised to change future warfare. The 2017 Military-Civil Fusion S&T Plan explicitly lists quantum communication and computing as priority areas. The PLA Navy’s University of Defense Technology has published openly on quantum navigation research.

The USCC’s 2025 report states that “the Commission assumes China is aggressively pursuing cryptographically relevant quantum computing and deliberately obscuring where its most sophisticated programs are located and how far they have advanced.”

No Western estimate of Chinese quantum spending includes military R&D, because no data exists. But given that quantum sensing (navigation, gravimetry, magnetometry) has the most immediate military applications, and that China’s defense budget exceeds $230 billion annually, even a small percentage allocation to quantum-relevant military research could represent billions that are invisible to every tracking methodology.

What the Analysts Actually Say When Pressed

Strip away the headline numbers and read what the serious analysts actually write, and a consistent picture emerges — not of Chinese quantum spending dominance, but of analytical humility about the limits of knowledge:

RAND (2022, 2024): “China has produced widely conflicting public numbers for its investment levels, so reliable numbers are hard to come by.” Edward Parker’s congressional testimony for the USCC noted that the U.S. and China “probably invest far more government funding into quantum R&D” than any other nations, “although China has produced widely conflicting public numbers.”

MERICS (2024): “We have not been able to verify the USD 150 billion amount that McKinsey reported.”

ECIPE (2024): “Estimating the exact scope of government funding for technology development in China is challenging. Government spending is famously difficult to track or verify… Some estimates suggest that China’s public investment in quantum technology could be as low as USD 4 billion.”

ITIF (2024): “The true extent of China’s investment is difficult to pin down due to the opacity of its government spending. Some reports suggest that actual spending might be lower, reflecting a common pattern wherein ambitious funding goals in China are not always fully realized.”

OECD (2025): “Actual investment expenditures have not been reported.”

CSIS (2023, 2026): Noted that if China announces quantum investment targets, this “might motivate a relabeling of other activities as quantum related to boost the results.” CSIS experts estimated Chinese government investment effectiveness at approximately 60% – meaning that even if $15.3 billion was disbursed, the productive impact might be equivalent to roughly $9 billion.

Every serious institution that has examined this question has concluded, in different words, the same thing: we don’t know.

Why This Matters More Than the Number Itself

The point of this analysis is not to minimize the scale of China’s quantum investment. Even at Chao-Yang Lu’s lower bound of $3.75–5 billion, China’s government spending on quantum technology is substantial – and it is channeled through a coordinated system that, whatever its inefficiencies, ensures sustained multi-decade funding insulated from electoral cycles and venture capital return timelines. That structural advantage is real regardless of the dollar figure.

The point is that the Western policy community has built its quantum competition narrative on a foundation of one unverified number from one consulting firm, and that this intellectual laziness has consequences.

It distorts the threat assessment. If China has spent $15.3 billion and the U.S. has spent $3.8 billion, the spending gap narrative drives panic. If the real number is $4–5 billion, the picture looks dramatically different – particularly when you factor in that U.S. private sector quantum investment dwarfs China’s by an order of magnitude. The total U.S. quantum ecosystem (public + private) may actually exceed China’s. But nobody has done that comparison rigorously because the McKinsey number makes the lazy version of the story more compelling.

It obscures the real Chinese advantage. China’s quantum edge is not primarily about spending. It is about coordination, persistence, and the willingness to fund infrastructure — a 12,000-kilometer quantum communication network, two quantum satellites, 20 metropolitan QKD networks — that generates engineering expertise regardless of whether QKD proves to be the optimal long-term solution. Fixating on a dollar figure misses the structural and strategic advantages I document in my analysis of China’s quantum trajectory.

It enables the wrong policy response. If the problem is defined as “China outspends us 4-to-1,” the answer is “spend more.” If the problem is defined correctly – as a structural mismatch between China’s coordinated, multi-decade, state-enterprise-academic system and the West’s fragmented, cycle-dependent, market-driven approach – then the answer is far more complex and involves institutional design, not just appropriations.

The Uncomfortable Conclusion

Here is what we can say with confidence about Chinese quantum investment:

China has invested somewhere between $4 billion and $25+ billion in quantum technology over the past two decades, across national programs, provincial funds, municipal initiatives, state-owned enterprises, private companies, and military research. The National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences in Hefei represents between $1 billion and $10 billion depending on what you count. The new National Venture Guidance Fund sub-funds allocate up to $17.5 billion across quantum and other technologies, with the quantum-specific share unknown. Military quantum spending is completely invisible.

And here is what we cannot say: the actual number.

Anyone who quotes “$15.3 billion” without qualification is not providing analysis. They are providing a data point that has been stripped of every caveat its creators attached to it, inflated by circular citation, and deployed in service of a narrative that may or may not reflect reality.

For policymakers, intelligence analysts, and anyone trying to assess the competitive landscape honestly: stop citing McKinsey’s number as if it were gospel. It is an estimate, derived from opaque methodology, disputed by insiders, and surrounded by a confidence interval so wide that it is functionally useless for comparative analysis.

The quantum race is real. The stakes are enormous. And the honest answer about how much China is spending on it is: unless you are a senior Party member in Zhongnanhai, you don’t know. And even then, you might not.

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