Albuquerque Journal: A new day for quantum in New Mexico
Adam Hammer in the Albuquerque Journal:
Change is coming to Downtown Albuquerque this fall.
Just blocks away from City Hall and steps from the railroad tracks, a burst of activity will soon fill a neighborhood I like to call the Innovation District. Soon, the six-block corridor between Lomas, Broadway, Central and Second will house one of the nation’s most important quantum hubs in the world. There, a group of quantum founders, scientists and researchers will turn quantum science into startups and set a new standard for how the United States innovates at the frontier of technology.
This month, Roadrunner Venture Studios and our coalition of funders, quantum startups, universities and national laboratories won a $25 million state grant administered by the New Mexico Economic Development Department. The grant is the centerpiece of a bold vision for New Mexico put forth by the EDD: Building a world-class quantum campus in the heart of Albuquerque will allow us to create a healthy share of the more than $1 trillion in quantum value expected over the next decade.
Soon, new algorithms developed in Albuquerque labs for tasks like discovering pharmaceuticals or optimizing manufacturing systems will run across cloud-based quantum computers. In super-cold refrigerators kept just above absolute zero — colder than outer space— founders with unique ideas for superconducting qubits will test solution after solution. And on intersecting fiber-optic cables crisscrossing Downtown, quantum-immune encryption methods will be developed to keep American data safe for decades to come.