Insider Brief:
- Colorado is building a quantum workforce from the ground up, with a new K–12 blueprint that integrates quantum education into classrooms, career pathways, and teacher training programs across the state.
- The state is bringing together research and commercialization through infrastructure like the Boulder quantum incubator and Quantum COmmons, providing startups access to lab space, tools, and testbeds for innovation.
- Public policy plays a central role, with coordinated public-private funding under the Tech Hub designation unlocking $40.5 million in federal support, $74 million in tax credits, and bipartisan backing to grow the regional ecosystem.
- Colorado is creating a national model for quantum readiness, ensuring early access, equitable participation, and aligned investment across education, industry, and government.
Many of the roles shaping the quantum economy will require neither a Ph.D. nor a physics degree. In fact, most will require less than a bachelor’s and rely more on adjacent skills, such as electronics, coding, and systems integration moreso than quantum theory itself. But enabling this future does require laying the groundwork now, such as deciding who has access, which communities are prioritized, and how we prepare a workforce not just to meet market demand but to create the field from what is a step above scratch.
In Colorado, that groundwork is forming in classrooms, fabrication labs, and legislative chambers, where workforce development is not a tagline but a clear investment. On World Quantum Day 2025, the state released a K–12 quantum education blueprint to prepare students for quantum careers. This follows an announcement from earlier this year of a 13,000-square-foot quantum incubator in Boulder—a facility jointly led by the University of Colorado Boulder, Colorado State University, the Colorado School of Mines, and Elevate Quantum. The broader Tech Hub designation, secured last year, brought in $40.5 million in federal funding and unlocked $74 million in state-matched tax credits to help scale quantum infrastructure and workforce efforts across the Mountain West.
Across the state, a growing network of actors, from K–12 educators to university research labs, startup founders to state legislators, are creating a new kind of ecosystem. One where quantum mechanics, the physics of the very small, meets the politics of economic growth. Where new science meets new social contracts. Together, these efforts paint a unique picture: the mechanics behind building a quantum ecosystem require more than qubits. They require grounded materials—tax policy, teacher training, fabrication facilities, and a clear definition of what skills tomorrow’s workforce will need.
A Blueprint for a Quantum Workforce
In a nation where debates over education standards often stall at state lines, Colorado’s Department of Education did something rare when it launched a K–12 quantum education blueprint with teeth. According to Advancing K–12 Quantum Education: A Blueprint for State Leaders, 76% of quantum-aligned roles are projected to require less than a bachelor’s degree, and 80% rely primarily on non-quantum technical skills. This opens the door to a wide spectrum of talent—but only if those pathways are built with intention.
The blueprint outlines a three-part strategy:
- Build awareness and demand: Launch a centralized K–12 quantum portal, integrate QIST (quantum information science and technology) into career navigation platforms, and use educator peer networks to drive adoption.
- Support high-quality instruction: Expand teacher externships with local quantum companies, create asynchronous professional learning (PL) modules, and explore new models like a teacher fellowship program.
- Activate district levers: Integrate quantum into existing Career and Technical Education (CTE) pathways and eventually embed quantum concepts into Colorado’s state learning standards
Behind the blueprint is a simple but essential idea: students shouldn’t have to opt into elite STEM programs to learn about an industry that is assuredly going to impact the trajectory of their futures. If Colorado’s bet pays off, students in rural and urban districts alike will graduate “quantum-aware,” meaning they will be ready to pursue roles ranging from technician to researcher.
From Research to Commercialization
Colorado’s quantum strategy doesn’t stop at education. It also addresses a bottleneck we lament often within quantum–the ever-present gulf between research and commercialization.
The quantum incubator in Boulder, supported by a state tax incentive and led by CU Boulder in collaboration with CSU, Mines, and Elevate Quantum, provides startups access to tools, lab space, and testbeds to prototype innovations such as secure quantum networks and advanced sensors. As noted in the previous announcement, this facility complements other state-led projects like the Quantum COmmons campus in Arvada and the forthcoming National Quantum Nanofabrication Facility at CU Boulder.
“By bringing together our world-class higher education system with the companies who are helping to shape this industry, this incubator will help drive forward the next chapter for quantum in Colorado,” said Governor Polis. “Driving more jobs and economic development.”
That progress is already measurable. According to a recent article from the Colorado Sun, since 2020, Colorado-based quantum companies have raised nearly $600 million in private investment, with 89% of that capital raised after the region was designated a Tech Hub in late 2023. Notable raises include Quantinuum’s $300 million round, Atom Computing’s milestones in hardware scaling, and Infleqtion’s $11 million defense contract to advance optical clock technology.
Policy as Infrastructure
What distinguishes Colorado’s approach is not just scientific capability or startup activity, but rather policy design as a lever for industry growth. The state’s successful Tech Hub bid required coordinated financial matching from both the public and private sectors. In return, it unlocked the $40.5 million federal grant, $74 million in state tax credits, and additional state-level support from the Colorado Economic Development Commission.
The coalition behind this effort, Elevate Quantum, includes more than 120 members across Colorado, New Mexico, and Wyoming, making it one of the largest quantum consortia in the country. According to Elevate CEO Zachary Yerushalmi, bipartisan support remains strong.
“The first Trump administration created the National Quantum Initiative Act… The second Trump administration, quantum is a top priority for them,” Yerushalmi told The Colorado Sun. “Democrat, Republican, Independent, sideways, whatever it is, everybody sees quantum as just this incredible, important swim lane that we can’t afford to lose.”
Still, questions remain. As of mid-April, the U.S. Economic Development Administration had not provided further updates under the current administration, and state agencies like OEDIT had not received clarification on continued federal support. Despite the uncertainty, the local coalition is moving forward, driven by policy commitments, workforce plans, and an increasingly engaged education system.
Toward a Quantum-Ready Public
For a field long characterized by theoretical complexity, Colorado’s quantum transformation is refreshingly concrete. Teachers are completing externships at quantum labs. High schoolers are accessing QIST curriculum through CTE pathways. Startups are entering shared cleanrooms before they’ve even raised Series A rounds. And a 70-acre site in Arvada is being reimagined as a dedicated research and fabrication hub for quantum hardware and applications.
The result is a model less concerned with moonshot milestones and more focused on coordinated infrastructure development across school districts, postsecondary institutions, industry partners, and state agencies. If successful, it could be a national template for how emerging technologies are made accessible, not just academically or commercially, but civically.
As Governor Polis formally proclaimed April 14, 2025, Colorado’s World Quantum Day, he framed it as more than symbolic. The state’s investment in quantum, from Nobel-winning science to workforce pipelines, speaks to a clear, long-term commitment to making quantum a shared, public good.
And if quantum physics began with a small constant (Planck’s constant) which reframed light as particles rather than waves, then perhaps Colorado is cultivating its own constant: a strategy composed of small, systemic steps that shift the way we think about science, access, and infrastructure.
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