The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) will spend over $2.8 billion in 2004 on research and development for the Pentagon and will probably 'launch a multimillion-dollar program to kick-start U.S. research in quantum computing, an esoteric area of inquiry underway at government labs, universities, and companies such as AT&T, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, and Microsoft.' Supercomputers built to the arcane laws of quantum physics often run at temperatures near absolute zero and occupy spaces that look like a vial of liquid more than they resemble an electronic box. However, the computers in theory could complete in just seconds calculations that current take hours, and could solve in hours problems that could otherwise take centuries of processing on the most advanced silicon. One user looking forward to such power is a spokesperson for Pratt & Whitney, who says the company could use a ten-times-over performance immediately if available at economical cost. However, quantum computing is probably a decade or two away. The DARPA program, which is called Focused Quantum systems (foqus), has the goal of building a quantum computer capable of factoring a 128-bit number, in 30 seconds with 99.99 percent accuracy. Among topics covered are Microsoft's interest in quantum computing; whether quantum computers of useful size can be built in the known universe; and other possible successors to silicon-based computers, including Hewlett-Packard's (HP's) molecular electronics-based nanotechnology research.