Quantum startup incubator launching in Boulder

BOULDER — A group of partners that includes Elevate Quantum, University of Colorado, Colorado State University and the Colorado School of Mines is opening a startup incubator for quantum technology companies in Boulder.

“The facility will include a collaborative office environment for early stage quantum companies and state-of-the-art scientific equipment — providing a testbed to transform ideas for quantum technologies into products that will benefit consumers,” CU said in a news release. “Quantum technologies could include sensors for detecting signs of illness in human breath or networks that may one day send data that can’t be hacked over long distances.”

University officials will join state and local leaders on Wednesday to celebrate a ribbon-cutting at the facility, operations of which will be led by CU and housed in a 13,000-square-foot space in Boulder’s Flatiron Park business campus. 

San Diego-based BioMed Realty LLC acquired a 1 million-square-foot, 22-building portfolio in Flatiron Park in April 2022 for $625 million. The company has spent the last few years transforming the park into a life-sciences and technology campus.

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s Tech Hub program granted Elevate Quantum, a nonprofit consortium of about 70 stakeholders who represent industry, academia, capital and laboratories in Colorado and New Mexico, a Phase 2 Tech Hub designation last year that unlocked $127 million in state and federal funds, which are expected to generate several billion more dollars of private investment in the region’s quantum industry.

Colorado’s quantum economy employs about 3,000 workers, but that figure could more than triple to about 10,000 within the coming decade, according to a 2024 report from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade.

Quantum theory attempts to explain the behavior of matter at atomic and subatomic levels. Because quantum computers take advantage of special properties of quantum systems such as superposition, their computing power and speed are exponentially greater than a traditional computer. 

Applications of quantum science could revolutionize the way that humans discover new drug therapies, map the cosmos, protect sensitive data, combat climate change and maybe even discover new forms of life in deep space.

The Boulder Valley — with the CU physics department, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and JILA (formerly known as the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics) — has become, over the past three decades or so, the epicenter of quantum research. 

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