New Mexico’s state government is rethinking its role in emerging technology by building a quantum startup hub aimed at driving innovation, creating jobs and positioning the state as a leader in the burgeoning industry.

Last year, New Mexico lawmakers appropriated $25 million to establish a quantum startup hub as part of the state’s broader investment of more than $300 million in quantum technology and infrastructure. That larger effort, which combines state funding, federal partnerships, venture capital investment and startup support, is aimed at attracting research and development, creating an ecosystem of support for the tech. But most importantly, the initiative is helping state leaders imagine a broader vision for state government’s role in technology development — not just as a regulator, but as an active participant in innovation.

The lab, known as the Quantum Venture Studio Campus, is under construction in downtown Albuquerque’s so-called Innovation District. The facility will be used by companies and universities, under the administration of Roadrunner Venture Studios, a startup incubator that was selected last August to both build and operate the lab after a “rigorous evaluation project” by the New Mexico Economic Development Department.

It will feature a multi-node quantum network, dilution refrigerators, a quantum testbed, quantum packaging and demonstration facilities, along with a rapid prototyping center. The campus will also serve as the headquarters for the Quantum New Mexico Institute.

Rob Black, the state’s secretary of economic development, explained in an interview that the aim of the state’s investments in quantum are multifold and that they build on New Mexico’s legacy as a cradle for frontier technology. The state, he said, is no stranger to innovation, as it was home to the first tests of the atomic bomb, in 1945, as well as early contributions to nuclear fusion, fracking, clean room technology, satellites, GPS and early internet infrastructure tied to missile defense.

This history, along with the state’s skilled technical workforce — which has the highest concentration of individuals with PhDs in the country — and the renowned national science labs at Sandia, Los Alamos and the Air Force Research Lab, gives the state a “unique right to win” in this space, Black said.

Despite the state’s rich history of innovation, Black said, the state also failed to commercialize many of those breakthroughs. He said investment in quantum computing — a technology still in early stages of development — is about fixing that gap before commercialization, so that the next generation of technologies stay in New Mexico.

“Microsoft spun out of Sandia National Labs, but Bill Gates couldn’t get capitalized in New Mexico, so he left, because his dad said he if he moved back home, he would help — he would invest in his company. We never want to see that happen again,” Black said. “So we’re trying to create an ecosystem, and quantum is a great example of that, where we’re bringing in the physical infrastructure that helps support startups and test beds and others to engage with these technologies in different ways, and then you’ve got a customer base sitting across the road, with Sandia and [Los Alamos] and Kirtland Air Force Base, that is … also a scientific support base to advance the technologies.”

Another opportunity New Mexico doesn’t want to miss, Black said, is to build on the state’s prominent role in national security. Black said DARPA is a partner for New Mexico’s quantum ambitions and that its quantum validation testing program is tied into the Roadrunner quantum lab.

The stakes of these partnerships with national security actors and the private sector extend beyond innovation into what researchers call “Q-Day,” the theoretical moment that quantum computers become powerful enough to break encryption systems that secure all of the sensitive data on the planet, including banking information, government communications and health records.

“New Mexico has always been a leader in national security for our country, and I think part of this story is we want to be the first place that understands what Q-Day looks like in quantum, and so it’s important that America leads that — we believe New Mexico will be a core part of how we do that,” he said.

Black said the state is thinking about quantum networks as security infrastructure. The state is repurposing some of the funding it received through the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program to build secure quantum networks that can provide a defense layer against hostile actors, connecting Los Alamos, Sandia and downstate.

He said the returns from these investments will flow back to the State Investment Council’s sovereign wealth fund, which pays for state social programs like universal free child care, universal free college and two- and four-year skills training programs. (New Mexico is the only state with a universal child care law.)

“Our mission is to create pathways of opportunity for New Mexico families and [to] create a place where businesses can thrive, and so we’re really focused on that,” Black said. “We think the best way to do that is through these targeted, sector-based approaches to these technologies.”