Colorado: the Quantum State.
Get used to the sound of that.
This summer, Colorado beat out 400 other applicants for a major infusion of federal funds to turbocharge its efforts to become the Silicon Valley of quantum computing.
This isn’t some farfetched future thing we’re talking about. Colorado is already the epicenter of quantum tech research, infrastructure and jobs. Colorado already has 3,000 jobs in the quantum industry, and another 1,000 scientists are working on the technology, many many more than in Big Tech states like Texas, California and New York. The closest competitor for the federal funds, Chicago, has 49 such jobs.
Colorado got $40.5 million from The Economic Development Administration in the U.S. Department of Commerce a few weeks ago, which will leverage $77 million in state commitments and ultimately could mean roughly $1 billion more in federal dollars for the region. By some estimates, this could develop into a $3.5 trillion industry. That’s eight times the entire economic output of the state now.
Big names like Google, Lockheed, Microsoft, AWS and Nvidia are among the 120-plus companies and organizations partnering with Elevate Quantum, the tech hub that is coordinating Colorado’s quantum push. New startups like Quantinuum and Maybell Quantum are blossoming like wildflowers.
In May, the U.S. National Science Foundation announced a $20 million grant for CU Boulder to build a facility called the National Quantum Nanofab, where researchers will design and build small devices that tap into subatomic particles.
These devices are the building blocks of the coming computers that will be hundreds of times faster and more powerful than the fastest computers today.
Why is Colorado the leading candidate for this quantum leap?
“We’re an incredibly special region,” said Zachary Yerushalmi, CEO of Elevate Quantum. “We have an awesome ecosystem” for quantum development. “We’re good not just at quantum computing, we’re good at every single quantum technology along the stack, including stuff that is already in market.” Things like atomic clocks, quantum sensors, MRI scanners and even a laser-based breathalyzer.
How’d we get here?
First, Colorado has pioneered some of the basic discoveries at the heart of quantum computing thanks to the research at University of Colorado Boulder. Four scientists affiliated with CU Boulder have won the Nobel Prize in physics, three of them for quantum research.
Then Colorado has a crapload of national labs like the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden working on quantum applications and doing their own research.
Then there’s all the national security and space-related institutions and companies in Denver, Boulder and down in Colorado Springs, such as JILA, Space Command, Space Force, the Air Force Academy and NORAD. They are partnering with researchers and ordering up specific technologies to push national defense projects into warp drive.
“National security plays a special role as first users of new technology,” Yerushalmi said. “And for national security, all roads go through Colorado Springs.”
Then Gov. Jared Polis and U.S. Sens. Michael Bennett and John Hickenlooper took up the cause, and state and local governments began jumping in with support.
And why are we so excited about this? What exactly is quantum computing? (They said there would be no math when I signed up for journalism, so I turn to my 23-year-old daughter, who’s in graduate school studying physics, to explain all this. I know, I know: That apple fell nowhere near the tree.)
Dr. Zola’s take:
“Quantum computing seems to be all anyone is talking about in STEM fields today,” she told me. “While ‘quantum computing’ is used as a blanket statement for a range of computational technology, let’s break down what it means (theoretically) to be a quantum computer:
“One of the main and most important distinctions between quantum computing and today’s supercomputers is how information is stored. Supercomputers encode information with bits (0s and 1s) while quantum computers use qubits which are able to represent more than just 0 and 1. The weirdness of quantum mechanics is that something (a wave, a particle, or a qubit) can exist in multiple states at once. This cool characteristic is called superposition.”
I think we can all relate to the idea of multiple simultaneous states, like when your body is in a long budget meeting but your head is on a beach in Grand Cayman with an umbrella drink.
“Additionally, the second characteristic which is only accessible in quantum mechanics, is entanglement,” continues Zola. ”Both of these principles drastically change the way information is processed in quantum computers.
“Entanglement allows two qubits with multiple states to be in contact with another, which gives rise to even more possibilities other than 0 and 1. Now we can describe data using these coupled qubits instead of each individually. This means that we can now represent four different states (00, 01, 10, 11) just with two qubits. This means that with each new qubit we add to the computer, the information and calculations we can perform increase exponentially, which was impossible before.”
Think of a nuclear explosion versus a campfire.
“This also means the computer can process information simultaneously rather than completing a job linearly as with our current computers,” adds Zola.
Let’s say you ask a traditional computer to solve a maze, for instance. A traditional computer makes decisions in binaries, like 0 and 1 or left and right. And then it does things in sequence, one thing after another. So if you’re a traditional computer going into a maze, you walk right or left until you run into a wall, then you have to turn around. And you have to do that for every single step until you find the opening at the end.
Now you’re a quantum computer. You walk into the maze, and instead of deciding left or right, you say “Yes!” You explore all paths simultaneously, all at once.
It turns out that the great questions of our time, “the 'Jetsons Age questions,” require this approach if they are not going to take thousands of years to solve, adds Yerushalmi.
“So with all of this new computing power, quantum computing could enable us to solve problems that are currently unsolvable,” notes Zola. “While a classical computer would have to try each possible solution one by one, a quantum computer can evaluate multiple possibilities simultaneously. To give you an idea of the scale, this could mean the ability to simulate individual molecules in a cancer cell or how fundamental particles may have interacted at the beginning of the universe.
“When quantum computing becomes mainstream, its effects on daily life could be profound, even if the average person never directly interacts with a quantum computer,” Dr. Z explains further.
“Quantum algorithms could vastly improve the efficiency of AI systems, leading to smarter and more responsive technologies in everything from health care to transportation.
“Fraud detection in the financial sector, as well as precise stock trend modeling could have wide implications. In medicine, we would have the capabilities to analyze a vast amount of genetic data and imaging data which could lead to specialized treatment plans and streamlined drug discoveries. Specifically, imaging data processing power may mean disease and defect identification in early stages which were not possible before.”
We might even be able to detect and prevent major illnesses before they strike.
“As of 2024, we are witnessing rapid advancements in the field, but we are still several years away from realizing fully functional, large-scale quantum computers,” Zola reminds. “Currently there are already hybrid models being integrated in research and more progress is being made in creating these magical qubits.”
Yerushalmi says quantum computers are only a matter of when not if. He thinks we could see the first operating quantum computer in as little as three years.
Wouldn’t it be something if Colorado built the very first one?
It’ll take a lot more than scientists for that to happen. It will take welders, pipefitters, manufacturers and great entrepreneurs.
And all these quantum cowboys will have to collaborate closely, like members of a finely tuned quantum symphony, for Colorado to pull this off, said Yerushalmi.
“The only reason we pulled (the hub designation) off is because the whole community came together,” Yerushalmi said. ”Everybody was pulling in exactly the same direction.”
Gotta give Dr. Z the last word on all this: “Quantum computing brings together physicists, materials scientists, engineers, computational experts, and reaches widely across scientific disciplines. With many heads working together and riding the quantum wave, I think we’re all excited to see what they come up with.”