As the United States and China escalate their rivalry over quantum technology, companies across the sector are already repositioning to navigate the geopolitical storm, from building domestic manufacturing bases to carving out independent units for non-Western markets. In the lab physicists race to achieve entanglement, the phenomenon in which particles become inextricably linked regardless of distance. In the boardroom, quantum firms are doing everything they can to avoid being drawn into an entanglement of a different kind, one between Washington and Beijing. This week, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to strengthen domestic quantum supply chains and manufacturing capabilities, update the national quantum strategy and expand counterintelligence protections for quantum technologies. The order frames competing nations, including adversarial countries, as a direct threat to American quantum leadership. Against that backdrop, the strategies of quantum firms vary sharply by geography. US-based companies are focusing on local customers and supply chains, while UK and European players see an opening to serve allies and non-allied nations alike. Taiwanese firms, caught between two superpowers, are racing to build sovereign quantum capabilities before tightening export controls close that window. Executives from Quantum Computing Inc (QCI), Infleqtion and ORCA Computing, alongside a board advisor from Foxconn, spoke to Asia Times on the sidelines of the Commercializing Quantum Global 2026 conference in London, organized by Economist Enterprise, sharing how they are navigating the intensifying US-China quantum race. “In order to mitigate the risk imposed by geopolitics, we have been working on establishing our manufacturing capabilities in the US. Right now, we are not subject to export control restrictions, but that could change. When there are restrictions, we just have to follow the rules,” Yuping Huang, chairman and chief executive of QCI, a publicly listed US quantum photonics company, told Asia Times in