Massachusetts will contribute $25 million to help MIT build a new quantum computing lab, as the state seeks to nurture a research and business ecosystem in one of the hottest emerging areas in tech.
The Boston area is already a leading hub of academic research into quantum computing, which could revolutionize the tech industry by using atomic or subatomic particles to solve vastly more complicated problems than the silicon transistors in traditional computers. The efforts attracted AI chip giant Nvidia to open a quantum research center here last year and led to the founding of several startups in the field, including QuEra and Atlantic Computing, which was acquired by Google last year.
“This is an opportunity, quantum, to really put a stake in the ground and become the global hub for quantum research, and all that comes from that,” Governor Maura Healey said on Thursday after she announced the investment at a monthly MIT board meeting on the school’s Cambridge campus.
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The new MIT facility, called the Quantum Systems Laboratory, will include early versions of quantum computers, along with compatible sensors and other hardware. After construction is finished, expected by the end of 2027, the facility will provide about 220 permanent jobs and be open to researchers from other schools and the private sector.
The state’s investment will come out of a fund Healey approved in 2024 to match federal grants. MIT said it would use another $25 million of federal money plus an undisclosed amount of its own and donated funds to build the lab.
Despite the state’s investment in the MIT lab and a few other quantum-related projects, the effort pales in comparison to a $500 million quantum computing center that the state of Illinois is funding on a 128-acre campus in Chicago. (Illinois also won $140 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to help fund its quantum campus.)
Quantum computers still make too many errors to be relied on for breakthrough discoveries, but startups and companies such as Google and IBM are making progress at eliminating the mistakes.
In theory, a quantum computer could perform calculations vastly more quickly than conventional computers and unravel mysteries in fields such as chemistry and physics while helping discover new drugs and new materials.
Labs at Harvard and MIT have generated many cutting-edge quantum developments. But despite decades of effort since Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman proposed the idea in 1982, no one has yet perfected a quantum computer that outperforms conventional computers.
“Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” MIT president Sally Kornbluth said at Thursday’s event. “It has been clear to us for some time that if we could magnify all of that talent with the right facilities and shared quantum toolbox, we could establish Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation.”
Thursday’s announcement came after the Healey administration debuted another effort earlier this week to stimulate the state’s tech sector.
On Tuesday, economic development secretary Eric Paley visited the offices of software firm Red Hat, a unit of IBM, which is starting a program to help AI startups based in Massachusetts. The company is dedicating the fifth floor of its offices in Fort Point to a new startup support program.
Red Hat will invite five to 10 startups at a time that are working on AI software to take up residency for about four months and receive coaching and backing from IBM’s venture fund. The program is aimed at helping early stage companies that have a rough prototype or app already but no revenue or customers yet.
“I’ve been in technology for a long time, and I’ve never seen a technology like AI that creates the potential to take an idea to technical reality to business impact faster,” said Stefanie Chiras, senior vice president in charge of the startup program.
Speaking on a Tuesday panel, Paley said Red Hat’s “Open Accelerator” hub, subsidized in part by $6 million in state funds, is a great example of how public-private partnerships should work as the Healey administration tries to spur key tech industries, including quantum computing and defense.
“We have so much opportunity across the board,” Paley said. “I’m an optimist about that, but I’m an impatient optimist. We have a huge amount of work to do.”
Meanwhile, IBM is also racing to build quantum computers, including a new research center in Chicago. On Thursday, IBM announced a five-year, $10 billion effort to expand its quantum computing programs. IBM aims to start selling large-scale quantum computers in 2029.
Jon Chesto of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Aaron Pressman can be reached at aaron.pressman@globe.com. Follow him @ampressman.
