Seth Lloyd did a talk at the Long Now Foundation in 2016 about his research into quantum computing. He made the point that his research is (partially?) funded by the NSA - which was great because the NSA's position on quantum computing/cryptography was basically "we would prefer that quantum computers are impossible, but if they are possible then we want the first one". So - every time he'd go to them and say "well...we haven't cracked the nut quite yet" they would turn around and say "great!" which is quite the unusual funding situation.

edit: link to talk

http://longnow.org/seminars/02016/aug/09/quantum-computer-re...