New Mexico venture studio unveils quantum lab to boost US tech edge

The investment and incubation firm Roadrunner Venture Studios will unveil a new quantum lab Tuesday in Albuquerque as New Mexico looks to bolster the U.S.’s position in the global race for quantum computing.

The Roadrunner Quantum Lab will open as part of the state’s $450 million commitment to quantum development. Those behind the project say it will provide the capital, infrastructure and national lab research for firms to work towards commercializing quantum computing, according to details first shared with The Hill.

The 35,000-square-foot lab will first open its doors to eight quantum companies, Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Quantum New Mexico Institute.

“In a national lab setting, you don’t have that mix,” Adam Hammer, the co-founder and CEO of Roadrunner Venture Studios, told The Hill on Monday. “You have a lot of researchers. You might have some recruitment, but you don’t have capital. In the private sector setting, you have, maybe the capital, but you certainly don’t have the infrastructure that’s required, and oftentimes you don’t have access to the talent.”

Unlike traditional computing, which relies on bits or pieces of data that are either a zero or one, quantum computers use qubits, which can be both zero and one at the same time.

Using the laws of physics, quantum computing can solve complex problems much faster than classical computers. Like AI, quantum computing can be used as a defensive tool, but it can also give bad actors the ability to quickly untangle the encryption that protects computers.

The technology is still in an experimental or research phase, but practical use and commercialization is next.

“When we think about this from a policy angle, quantum is going to be one of the big battlegrounds between the U.S. and China and we’re seeing this take shape today,” Hammer said. “A lot of conversation taking shape globally is how the United States and China are positioning around this new era of compute.”

On AI, “there are elements that China has done really well. Think about even power generation from an infrastructure layer, the United States lags, China’s ahead, but when we think about chip development, we’re ahead,” he said.

“We are ahead in quantum technologies, but not that far ahead,” he continued. “And what we have to do to win in this space is not to do a bunch of great [research and development], it’s to build great products,” Hammer added.

The Trump administration has made quantum computing a priority for the U.S. government. President Trump signed a pair of executive orders in June, one of which sets a goal of moving certain government computing systems to post-quantum cryptography by 2030 or 2031. It also urges the Pentagon to use quantum sensors by 2028.

Rob Black, New Mexico’s secretary of Economic Development, emphasized the state has long been a leader in research and development — from the start of Microsoft to the Manhattan Project — but it has not hosted most commercialization of tech.

“Certainly, we have Intel here, we have other things, and we have lab spaces,” Black told The Hill in an interview Monday. “But when you think about the commercialization of a lot of the technologies that came out of Sandia and LANL Air Force Research Lab, the work that’s been done here, those economic benefits have translated into Seattle, into other places.”

“So we’re taking a major bet into the sector because we believe again we have a right to win this for the U.S. and for our country,” Black said.

New Mexico hosts the nation’s second-largest state sovereign wealth fund of about $75 billion. About $2 billion of this fund is being put into 30 of the “best venture capital” firms in the world to invest in the state, Black said.

The state is home to the University of New Mexico’s Quantum Institute, where about 60 doctorates specialized in quantum information sciences have graduated.

“From a talent perspective, it’s the highest Ph.D. per capita of any state in America,” Hammer said, explaining the decision to build the lab in New Mexico.

The eight firms that will first get access to the lab are Diraq, IonQ, Quantum Machines, Conductor Quantum, Mesa Quantum, QBoltz, Photon Queue and Quera.