Op/ed: State and UMD Can Lead in Building ‘Capital of Quantum’

Wise spending cuts are one way to shore up the state’s budget, but so is making careful investments that will pay off for the state of Maryland and its people—a point Gov. Wes Moore made when he visited the University of Maryland last month, and which UMD President Darryll J. Pines echoes in a recent essay published in The Baltimore Sun.

At an event held in UMD’s Discovery District, Moore announced new state funding designed to propel the $1 billion “Capital of Quantum” initiative, which Pines said could put both the state and UMD at the center of an emerging high-tech industry poised to create vast economic opportunity.

Quantum science—the study of matter and energy at the most fundamental level—has potential applications in areas such as environmentally friendly batteries, targeted pharmaceutical development and cybersecurity. It is expected to eventually overhaul sectors like health care, finance, transportation and energy, ultimately making the life of each Marylander more sustainable, healthier and safer, with more startups and more jobs.

The University of Maryland is well positioned to be a leader in this field—which is projected to have a cumulative impact of $2 trillion in the next decade, according to a 2024 McKinsey analysis for the Quantum Technology Monitor—but we have to act now. Ranked among the top 20 public universities nationwide, UMD has a foundation of 35 years of quantum research, more than 200 researchers at 10 quantum-focused centers such as the Joint Quantum Institute, and is at the geographic intersection of a host of scientific and research agencies. In addition, past funding and support from government, industry, philanthropy and the Maryland taxpayer led to the founding of IonQ, a first-of-its-kind publicly traded, pure-play quantum computing company with a market capitalization as of this writing around $9 billion.

Read the rest in The Baltimore Sun.