I don't think these incentives make sense at all. Government organizations suspected to be developing quantum computers probably have larger annual budgets than 20 billion. The ability to undermine virtually all cryptographic systems is unquantifiably large.
Once the cat is out of the bag, everyone will rush to post-quantum cryptography and all that value will be lost in a relatively short period. Indeed, we already witnessed this in the 2010s following the Snowden revelations when big tech, in a concerted effort, adopted HTTPS. Now that is the standard.
For example, "The Fiscal Year 2022 budget appropriation included $65.7 billion for the National Intelligence Program, and $24.1 billion for the Military Intelligence Program."
Once the cat is out of the bag, everyone will rush to post-quantum cryptography and all that value will be lost in a relatively short period. Indeed, we already witnessed this in the 2010s following the Snowden revelations when big tech, in a concerted effort, adopted HTTPS. Now that is the standard.
For example, "The Fiscal Year 2022 budget appropriation included $65.7 billion for the National Intelligence Program, and $24.1 billion for the Military Intelligence Program."
Source: https://irp.fas.org/budget/index.html