The funding situation around quantum computing is quite strange indeed. Governments want to get a foot in the door for a new high-tech industry, but it also has

The funding situation around quantum computing is quite strange indeed. Governments want to get a foot in the door for a new high-tech industry, but it also has implications for national security. The few existing quantum computing nerds aren't enough to go around. So everyone is falling over each other to train up some new nerds. They are opening huge pots of money any professor who can make a plausible case for quantum computing with X. Here X is generally some form of pure research that the professor made a contribution to in the past. You'll inevitably have some growing pains when you try to repurpose hundreds of physicists like this. It seems sort of silly, but when a government decides it wants get a jump on a new industry, before it's commercially viable, I don't see a better option.