Colorado beat out Illinois — the only other federally designated quantum region — to win the $40.5 million grant. The funding will release an additional $74 million in state tax credits that was approved in anticipation of the grant. Experts at the University of Colorado anticipate an influx of $2 billion in private investment as a result of Tuesday's announcement.
The development comes just as Colorado is exploding into what might become the country’s most respected aerospace technology hub with a trajectory like California’s Silicon Valley in the late 20th century.
This was not luck of the draw. Colorado won this grant because of the generations of investments our state and private enterprise have used to develop research universities. It is because of our state’s expertise and hospitality in hosting some of the world’s most sophisticated military technology.
We won this money because Colorado’s high-tech ecosystem, taken as a whole, provides a premium promise of financial returns and positive outcomes for society.
For those unfamiliar with quantum computing — which includes much of the American public — it poses the likelihood of advanced computers that can do in minutes what today’s highest computers might take years to achieve.
The technology is in its relative infancy, so even the most qualified experts cannot predict all the benefits, threats and shortcomings of this developing technology. In the simplest terms — big emphasis on “simplest” — conventional computers use transistors and bits composed of binary 1s and 0s.
Quantum computing uses nonbinary qubits. As explained by Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, a qubit can essentially develop and utilize limitless fractions of a “1” or an “0,” exponentially enhancing capabilities.
Don’t expect this technology to revolutionize computing overnight. It probably won’t affect typical home and office computing for decades, at best. For the foreseeable future, this technology holds the most promise for government and military operations and major corporate functions. Qubits are simply too high maintenance and complex to pick up at Best Buy.
“Today’s qubits have to be held at extremely low temperatures, close to absolute zero (-459.67 Fahrenheit or −273.15 Celsius),” explains Forbe’s technology writer Andrew Williams. “They are also extremely susceptible to errors and noise, caused by, among other factors, electromagnetic interference.”
That’s why this developing field needs massive investment and the kind of imagination, determination and out-of-the-box thinking that gave us space flight, the internet, smartphones and other developments one could not imagine 50 years ago.
The award’s recipient organization, Elevate Quantum, is a Denver-based nonprofit that serves as a Mountain West tech hub covering Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. The grant tells the rest of the world that experts, having conducted high levels of due diligence, see Colorado as a hub — perhaps the most important region — for the future of computing that could sometime cure diseases, bend time or move us closer to understanding time, space and dimension.
Now is the time for the world’s brightest entrepreneurs and investors to immerse themselves in this promising new research and development with no foreseeable limit for growth. To get in early, look to Colorado — the 21st century’s super lab for advancing humanity.
© 2024 The Gazette (Colorado Springs, Colo.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
