Quantum ecosystem development: how to build a regional quantum ecosystem

Quantum funding concentrates in a small number of clusters

The European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) published the first structured ranking of quantum clusters in Occasional Paper 15/2025. It counts a region as a cluster when it hosts at least two startups with USD 10 million or more of disclosed funding combined, or one with USD 25 million or more, and at least five research, industry or government institutions active in quantum. On that test it finds 45 clusters and 86 earlier-stage “quasi-clusters”. It estimates that 96 percent of global quantum company funding in 2025 (recorded up to July 31) sat inside clusters, up from 95 percent in 2024 and 92 percent up to 2023.

The authors tie this to two features of the field: quantum research needs specialized, capital-intensive infrastructure that is hard to duplicate, and the talent pool is small and concentrated. Their reading is that real progress appears only where those capabilities sit together. The paper also separates two routes to a strong cluster. In “frontier-tech” regions such as the San Francisco Bay Area and Tel Aviv, quantum rides on a large startup scene. In specialized hubs such as Helsinki and Denver-Boulder, quantum is a distinct focus within a smaller economy. The Quantum Insider covered the paper in February 2026.

The six parts of a regional quantum ecosystem

The six parts below are how TQI organizes ecosystem work. Each is illustrated with a public example, and each example states what the source measured.

1. Anchor institutions

Anchors are the universities, national laboratories and companies that give a region its first reason to exist. The most complete public inventory is the Massachusetts quantum computing ecosystem study by the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative (MassTech), produced with TQI. The full report identified 131 research groups across 14 doctorate-granting universities, 108 of them in Greater Boston, and 49 companies with activity in quantum computing. It named MIT Lincoln Laboratory and the AWS Center for Quantum Networking among the state’s research centers.

North Carolina’s base is also academic. The Research Triangle Regional Partnership described North Carolina State University’s Centennial Campus as IBM’s first university-based Q Hub in North America in 2020, alongside work at Duke and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In March 2026 Duke reported that the Duke Quantum Center had grown from five to 15 faculty and that its new director wants to build a start-up ecosystem across the state.

2. Talent

Chattanooga’s Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative (CQC) set a ten-year goal of training 5,000 people when it launched in March 2024. In June 2026 it ran what TQI reported as the first quantum pre-apprenticeship in the United States: a 12-week program for 18 professionals from 17 Tennessee employers, funded by a National Science Foundation planning grant to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The program was planned for 10 people and expanded after nearly 80 applied.

The program ties talent to demand. Each participant completes a Quantum Opportunity Assessment of possible quantum use cases at their employer, so the course produces a list of local buyers as well as trained staff.

In North Carolina, House Bill 1142, filed in April 2026, would fund quantum computing classes in public schools, a grant program at the state’s Collaboratory and a business tax credit. According to the UNC School of Government bill summary it had passed first reading and been referred to committees in May 2026 and had not been enacted at that point. Treat it as a proposal.

3. Capital

Public capital tends to arrive as a stack: a federal award, state matching funds and a private-capital target. Elevate Quantum, a Colorado and New Mexico consortium, is the clearest example. CU Boulder’s July 2024 announcement reported more than $127 million in new federal and state funding, with milestones to be reached by 2030.

The same announcement lists the 2030 milestones as targets: over $2 billion in private capital activated and over 10,000 quantum jobs created. Those are goals set at award, not results.

Illinois and Maryland made larger public commitments. The Illinois governor’s office said in July 2024 that the state was investing $500 million to build out the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, after an earlier $200 million for the Chicago Quantum Exchange. Maryland’s governor announced a “Capital of Quantum” initiative in January 2025 that is expected to drive more than $1 billion of investment over five years from state, federal, private and philanthropic sources. The state’s own initial investment in that release was $27.5 million, proposed in the fiscal 2026 budget.

4. Infrastructure and facilities

Shared facilities are what a young company cannot afford alone. Chattanooga’s starting point was infrastructure rather than a university. The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga study of the city-owned utility EPB records that EPB launched its commercial quantum network in 2022, built on its fiber network. TQI reported in March 2026 that the utility was assembling a $22 million Quantum Center in Chattanooga.

The Illinois park shows the same idea at campus scale. The governor’s release describes a site of 128 acres ready for development with 312 more for expansion, an anchor tenant planning a 300,000-square-foot footprint, and co-location with federal research offices, national laboratories and universities. Massachusetts shows the gap that appears without it: the 2023 study found that the state has several well-funded centers, institutes and laboratories that “typically work in isolation”, and it proposed mapping infrastructure gaps through a shared program.

5. Early demand

Demand gives trained people and young companies a reason to stay, and the Massachusetts study listed talent moving to other hubs as a concern. Public programs create demand in three ways. They run employer-linked training, as in Chattanooga. They buy or test hardware, as in Illinois, where the state’s release describes a partnership with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in which quantum computing prototypes are tested and evaluated as part of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative. And they use multinational companies already present in the region, which the Massachusetts study identified as possible routes to market for local products.

6. Coordination and governance

Someone has to own the plan. Chattanooga chose a non-profit, membership-based collaborative, with a former U.S. senator as board chair, the city’s mayor and the utility’s chief executive as board members, and a ten-year plan that starts with a study by national experts. Its stated goals were $5 billion in economic benefit and a quantum-ready workforce of 5,000 over ten years (TQI, March 2024).

Maryland used an executive order that identifies quantum computing as a priority industry for state investment. Massachusetts’ study found the opposite gap: a fragmented community in which research groups are often seen as competitors, and it recommended a coordinated Commonwealth-wide initiative, possibly a “Quantum Alliance”. MassTech also runs a convening: its conference page describes the Quantum Massachusetts Conference as a biennial convening of the state’s quantum community.

Six regions compared

The table separates what each region started with, what it added and what it says it will achieve. Targets and projections are marked as such because none had been measured at the time of the source.

Sources for each row are in the sections above and in the list at the end of the page. The Chattanooga collaborative’s goals come from its launch announcement. The Maryland, Illinois and Colorado figures come from government or university announcements that describe expected outcomes.

What a baseline study covers

Both Chattanooga and Massachusetts began with a study. The Massachusetts report is public, so its scope shows what a baseline contains. According to its executive summary and scope appendix, TQI’s work for MassTech included:

• an inventory of critical assets: private industry, research and development, college and university programs and workforce pipelines, STEM and community programs, and public-private partnerships;
• a survey with 29 participants and interviews with 18 stakeholders across industry and academia;
• a patent search and a map of companies across the quantum computing supply chain;
• a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis set against other U.S. states and other regions;
• priority focus areas and recommendations.

The report was finalized in April 2023 and published on MassTech’s site in November 2023. Ecosystems move quickly, so a baseline is a dated snapshot. MassTech also published a Quantum Ecosystem Update in January 2026, prepared by Resonance, which refreshes the baseline for the same institute.

A sequence that fits the public record

The examples do not prove a single correct order, but they point to one that regions have used.

1. Take inventory

   Count institutions, companies, researchers and facilities, as the Massachusetts study did.

2. Choose a focus

   ECIPE’s two models, a broad startup base or a specialized hub, set what a region can credibly aim for.

3. Create the coordinating body

   Chattanooga founded its collaborative before the study that would shape the plan.

4. Fund people and facilities

   Stack federal, state and private money, as Colorado and Illinois did, and label the targets as targets.

5. Measure the result

   Decide the indicators early. How to measure the economic impact of quantum covers the methods.

Where programs stall

• Fragmentation. The Massachusetts study found that a large number of independent groups competing for external funding can work against collaboration.
• Talent leaves. The same study reported concern about talent moving to other hubs, with NIST Colorado, California and Maryland named by interviewees.
• Targets read as results. Maryland’s $1 billion, Illinois’ $20 billion and Elevate Quantum’s 10,000 jobs are expectations stated at announcement. Check the verb in the source before repeating a figure.
• Unfunded plans. North Carolina’s school-level quantum bill had not been enacted when its summary was published. A proposal is not a program.

How TQI works with regions

The Quantum Insider’s advisory team has delivered ecosystem work for public bodies. The public example is the Massachusetts quantum ecosystem assessment for the Innovation Institute at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative: read the 2023 study page. The consulting page lists the full set of engagements.

To discuss the scope and timing of a study, talk to the team through the ecosystem mapping inquiry form. TQI’s platform data on companies, funding and investors is described on the data page, including a dataset on government quantum funding.

Questions about quantum ecosystem development

Sources

1. Quantum Clusters: Ranking the World’s Deep-Tech Epicentres, ECIPE Occasional Paper 15/2025, Fredrik Erixon, Andrea Dugo, Dyuti Pandya and Elena Sisto, December 2025.
2. Study Reveals World’s Leading Quantum Ecosystems, and Why They Lead, The Quantum Insider, February 16, 2026.
3. Quantum computing study, Innovation Institute, Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.
4. Massachusetts Quantum Computing Ecosystem Study, MassTech with The Quantum Insider, report contents finalized April 2023, published November 2023.
5. Officials Announce Launch of Chattanooga Quantum Collaborative, The Quantum Insider, March 26, 2024.
6. Inside Tennessee’s Growing Quantum Ecosystem and its Federal Impact, The Quantum Insider, March 6, 2026.
7. Tennessee Employers Explore Quantum Opportunities Through New Pre-Apprenticeship, The Quantum Insider, June 25, 2026.
8. From Gig City to Quantum City, Bento J. Lobo with William Plank, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and EPB, November 12, 2025.
9. IBM and NC State Are Leading the Development of a New Quantum Ecosystem, Research Triangle Regional Partnership, February 19, 2020.
10. Ken Brown named director of the Duke Quantum Center, Duke Pratt School of Engineering, March 31, 2026.
11. House Bill 1142, Expand Quantum Computing Education, bill summary, UNC School of Government, 2025-2026 session.
12. CU Boulder, Elevate Quantum partners ready $127M regional quantum boost, CU Boulder Today, July 2, 2024.
13. Gov. Pritzker announces location and anchor tenant of new quantum park, Office of the Governor of Illinois, July 25, 2024.
14. Governor Moore announces $1 billion Capital of Quantum initiative, Office of the Governor of Maryland, January 14, 2025.
15. Massachusetts Quantum Ecosystem Update, prepared by Resonance for the MassTech Innovation Institute, January 2026.
16. Quantum computing consulting and advisory services, The Quantum Insider, as of Q4 2026.