In the early 90's quantum computing was everywhere, articles in every tech publication, discussions about the implications for AI, cryptology, markets, etc. Then after 2-3yrs it went quiet, for a long time, like 20yrs, now it's been in the news again for the last decade. There is no doubt that there was 20+yrs of hardcore development that they just didn't want the public to know about. I assume that they had to discuss it just enough to feed the pipeline with talented people to develop the tech on the downlow.