It is well known that the quantum world is bizarre and uncertain. A photon is simultaneously both a wave and a particle. Schrodinger’s cat is neither dead nor alive but some strange superposition of states in which it is both dead and alive. And an electron can tunnel through an energy barrier larger than the energy it possesses.

But what is less well known is that such quantum uncertainty extends from the microscopic up to the macroscopic world of national politics and funding. This is the only way to understand the Queensland and federal government’s recent announcement to invest $940 million in PsiQuantum, a Californian start-up attempting to build a photonic quantum computer.