An update in The Gazette this week on a pioneering Colorado quantum-tech company spoke volumes about the bright prospects of our state in general for becoming a global center of the epochal technology.

The word “quantum” — overused and at times misused — has been around a long time. It conveyed an otherworldly degree of technological advancement. Now, as it becomes workaday reality, it warrants a more precise definition (courtesy of Google AI): the use of subatomic physics to process complex data and perform other feats at extraordinary speed.

Without a doubt, it stands to change almost everything — from cutting-edge science to everyday life — and it promises to rocket even artificial intelligence into hyperdrive. Given that kind of gravitas, it obviously will be a key factor not only in our nation’s prosperity but also our national security.

Colorado is poised to become a quantum technology hub.

As The Gazette reported, quantum firm Infleqtion opened the Colorado Quantum Innovation Center — its new headquarters — in Louisville on Tuesday. It’s part of a push to commercialize quantum supercomputing and make Colorado the heart of the emerging industry. CEO Matt Kinsella said the new location is intended as more than just a company headquarters; the aim is for the campus to serve as a beacon for the technology for the whole state.

“We sit here at the hub of global quantum innovation,” Kinsella said during the new location’s opening ceremony, attended by state and regional leaders, including Gov. Jared Polis.

As noted in The Gazette report, Infleqtion’s leadership believes Colorado will be the epicenter of the quantum revolution, and they have dubbed the region “Quantum Peak,” a counterpart to California’s Silicon Valley.

Infleqtion was one of the earliest companies to help establish Colorado’s foothold in the quantum sciences. It develops sensors and other devices such as quantum computers, atomic clocks and quantum gravity gradiometry. 

It is one of the largest quantum companies in the U.S. and went public on the New York Stock Exchange in February. It now has a market capitalization of about $3 billion. 

In fact, there has been a boomlet of Colorado quantum companies going public, including Broomfield-based Quantinuum and Thornton-based Forge Nano. 

Adding to the economic synergy, President Donald Trump had the federal government acquire $2 billion in equity stakes in quantum companies, including $100 million in Infleqtion. Colorado also got support from the Biden administration, which designated the Mountain West region as the nation’s quantum tech hub in a federal effort to supercharge key industries across the U.S.

Colorado quantum tech received more than $100 million in federal and matching state grants. A lot of that money will fund a campus near Boulder to become quantum’s version of the Stanford Research Park in Silicon Valley. The infusion of money, in turn, recently helped attract a new testing facility from major quantum company IonQ.

In a state grappling with high housing and other costs — and burdened by legislative overreach that is scaring off some other economic sectors — it is encouraging, even exciting, to think of Colorado as the tech hub of tomorrow. For the Centennial State, it truly is a quantum leap.