With more than 400 Chinese companies on the U.S. Commerce Department's list of sanctioned firms — the so-called U.S. Entity List — it hardly even registers as news when more are added. But on the Wednesday before last Thanksgiving, the federal agency quietly made a bold announcement: eight more China-based “entities” were being added to the list, this time “to prevent U.S. emerging technologies from being used for the PRC’s quantum computing efforts.”  While the U.S. government has moved to promote quantum science domestically, the Commerce Department’s sanctions represented the first time the federal government was acting defensively, and it underscored what observers in the field have been warning about for years: China is rapidly closing the quantum gap.  “It’s a recognition that quantum computing is a very crucial technology for the military in the future, and also for the capabilities of the U.S. in the strategic competition with China, particul