Colorado’s quantum industry continued to move forward this week with big plans to support the commercial potential of quantum computing — a niche the federal government awarded a $40.5 million grant to last year.
On Monday, the state Department of Education shared quantum lesson plans for K-12 students, encouraged teachers to try out quantum-industry externships and provided a blueprint to help education leaders and lawmakers to shape how to build a future quantum workforce. Gov. Jared Polis proclaimed April 14 as Colorado’s World Quantum Day. The date, celebrated elsewhere since 2022, was picked to honor German theoretical physicist Max Planck and Planck’s constant, or 4.1356677×10−15, a number that shows light isn’t a stream but little chunks — the basis for quantum physics. It was picked by rounding up the constant to 4.14.
And University of Colorado, credited with helping develop the region into a top quantum research center back in the early 1960s with federal partners, said it is currently working with the industry to design and outfit a new incubator to get more research out of the lab and into the real world.
But for private quantum companies, they’re just glad to be part of a new computer era. Quantum computers, which call computer data bits “qubits,” are best for highly complex problems, rather than simple math problems. The hope is for quantum to help every industry find answers more quickly to the world’s most challenging problems, such as designing better batteries with less environmental impact or determining drug effectiveness faster.
“We celebrate quantum every day because that’s our business,” said Justin Ging, chief product officer at Boulder-based Atom Computing, which became the first quantum-computer maker in the world to reach the 1,000-qubit milestone in 2023, and then topped that last year when it surpassed 1,200 physical qubits.
The U.S. named the Boulder-Denver area’s quantum region one of 31 Tech Hubs in October 2023, as part of CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 and the Biden administration’s effort to invest in American-built innovation and spread the workforce and commercial implementation of technology around the nation. The Colorado pitch, with the support of 120 companies, schools and organizations, aimed to increase the local quantum workforce to 10,000 in a decade from the current 3,000.
Elevate Quantum became the name of the nonprofit managing Colorado’s consortium. It put a plan together and last year received a $40.5 million grant from the federal agency. Some is being used to develop Quantum COmmons at Arvada, a 70-acre property in Arvada that will provide a 10,000-square-foot fabrication lab space for prototyping, as well as a 17,000-square-foot lab for collaborative research and development.
The first facility, an administrative building, will be open this summer with the labs opening by early and mid 2026, said Zachary Yerushalmi, CEO of Elevate Quantum. They’ve been able to access the federal money “as normal,” and have used about 10% so far.
Federal funding has been “critical”
While Boulder is known for the quantum research at the federal labs and universities, building a viable commercial market is still nascent. The federal funds are meant to kickstart the ecosystem to commercialize products ahead of foreign competitors, like China. That has Yerushalmi hopeful that the Trump administration won’t abandon the Tech Hubs effort.
“Knock on all sorts of wood that we’ll have gotten the support we need to continue to deliver,” he said. “The first Trump administration created the National Quantum Initiative Act and that was a seminal piece of legislation that right from that time has basically set up the core fundamental and translational resources that have powered the whole U.S. quantum economy, much less that’s going on in Colorado. The second Trump administration, quantum is a top priority for them. It’s really fascinating.”
He pointed to recent federal agency nominations with a background in quantum or Colorado. Paul Dabbar, CEO of Bohr Quantum Technology, was nominated last month by Trump to be U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce. Dario Gill, director of IBM Research, was picked by Trump to be an undersecretary in the Department of Energy. Chris Wright, now U.S. Secretary of Energy, founded Liberty Energy, a Denver-based fracking company.
“Democrat, Republican, Independent, sideways, whatever it is, everybody sees quantum as just this incredible, important swim lane that we can’t afford to lose,” Yerushalmi said.
The Economic Development Agency, which has managed the U.S. Tech Hubs, hasn’t said a peep since the Trump administration took over Jan. 20. The Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, which has also supported commercial quantum development, hasn’t heard any updates on federal funding.
“We are working with our partners to monitor federal programs and funding related to advanced industries like quantum and the semiconductor industry, and remain focused on advancing these important sectors of our state and national economy,” said OEDIT spokesperson Alissa Johnson.
CU has also invested its own time and effort into developing a plan to train more workers as well as investing in the new Quantum Incubator, announced in January. The 13,000-square-foot facility in eastern Boulder is in collaboration with Colorado School of Mines, Colorado State University and others. The facility is meant to move quantum physics out of the lab and into the real world. Two years ago, CU was awarded $1.5 million from OEDIT to offer seed grants to researchers to turn their work into something viable outside of the lab.
“Federal and state support is critical,” CU spokesperson Nicole Mueksch said in an email. “The United States is in a race with China for quantum supremacy, and the outcome could have profound implications for the global balance of power.”
But the local effort isn’t relying just on federal funding. The state and private companies had to show support and provide a match to get the federal Tech Hub designation and grant. Last year, the state legislature approved $74 million in state tax credits that are available to quantum-related companies that locate and create jobs in Colorado. The Colorado Economic Development Commission also approved $3 million to support Elevate Quantum. Another $10 million came from New Mexico.
Private industry support plus other federal sources
And so far, another $600 million has come from private industry, Yerushalmi said.
The largest was a $300 million raised last year in Broomfield-based Quantinuum, another quantum computer maker. The investment round was led by JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell.
Boulder-based Infleqtion, which had raised nearly $200 million as of last year, received $11 million from the U.S. Department of Defense for its work with optical clocks.
Maybell Quantum, which builds fridge-like containers in Denver to keep quantum computer chips supercold, raised at least $25 million last year.
According to market researcher PitchBook, which tracks the private venture deals, Colorado quantum companies have raised nearly $600 million funding since 2020. Of that 89% was done since early 2024, after the region was named a Tech Hub.
Local companies are also getting noticed by other federal agencies. Earlier this month, Quantinuum, Atom Computing and Oxford Ionics in Boulder were among 18 quantum-computing companies picked by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to prove whether quantum computing is as good as theorized. DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative awarded all companies $1 million to detail their concept. They stand to get $300 million to build it.
“The QBI program aligns really well with our technical roadmap,” said Remy Notermans, Atom’s director of strategic planning. “It aligns more resources to achieving the end goal of building this large, fault-tolerant quantum computer.”