CU, Infleqtion tapped to help build ‘world’s most powerful scientific platform’

BOULDER — Two Boulder organizations — the University of Colorado and quantum firm Infleqtion Inc. (NYSE: INFQ) — have been recruited for key roles in the Genesis Mission, a Trump administration effort, led by the U.S. Department of Energy, that the government says will “build the world’s most powerful scientific platform.”

The Genesis Mission “unites DOE National Labs, industry, academia, and more to harness AI for breakthroughs in energy dominance, discovery science, and national security,” according to the mission website.

Administration officials pledged this week that federal agencies will commit $5 billion to the mission, and some of that funding is flowing into Boulder. 

CU said that it will receive six grants totalling $2.4 million for scientific discovery efforts that run the gamut from using artificial intelligence to control plasma in fusion energy systems to applying quantum computers to fusion energy simulations to discovering new fundamental particles in physics using AI to creating an AI-driven flood-prediction framework.

“These awards reflect the strength of CU Boulder’s research enterprise and our researchers’ ability to build ambitious, interdisciplinary collaborations needed to tackle some of our nation’s most important scientific challenges,” Massimo Ruzzene, CU senior vice chancellor for research and innovation, said in a prepared statement. “By applying advances in artificial intelligence to world-class research, our teams will help accelerate discovery in ways that will address complex challenges and benefit society.”

For its part in the Genesis Mission, Infleqtion said it will partner with CU, Argonne National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to develop “AI-optimized quantum circuit design for nuclear applications, deployable atomic quantum sensing with Agentic AI and nuclear fusion energy research.”

While Infleqtion is part of a much broader cohort of Genesis collaborators earmarked for $250 million, it wasn’t immediately clear Thursday how much of that total the Boulder quantum firm expects to receive.

“AI data centers are pulling more power than the grid was ever built to handle, and the industry is recognizing that these types of issues are beyond the capabilities of classical computing alone,” Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella said in a prepared statement. “By applying quantum computing to some of the hardest problems in nuclear and energy research, Infleqtion is playing a critical role in advancing the objectives of the Genesis Mission.”

Infleqtion inked a separate deal in May with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s CHIPS Research and Development Office that could provide the Boulder quantum firm with as much as $100 million in new funding, should it reach certain technological development milestones.

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