The Mountain West is becoming a global epicenter for quantum computing and technology. In Colorado alone, the industry’s 3K current jobs are projected to grow to 30K over the next decade. Many of those well-paying roles won’t require an advanced degree, or even a four-year degree for thousands of anticipated jobs for welders, fabricators, and technicians.

An ambitious new project seeks to develop the quantum workforce pipeline, with a goal of training more than 10K workers for quantum careers by 2030. That effort includes an attempt to bridge the gap between education and industry by tapping artificial intelligence to help create nimble career pathways for the quantum sector.

“The cure is in the disease,” says Kayvon Touran, the CEO and cofounder for Zal.ai, the tech platform for the talent partnership project. 

Zal is working to process massive amounts of data while enabling education and workforce training providers to upload curriculums, match them to employer-approved job descriptions, and develop fixes for closing skills gaps.

The Big Idea: The goal is to create job preparation programs that can be tweaked quickly and often as the industry expands. “Let’s build a system that can evolve,” Touran says.

Elevate Quantum is the overarching consortium that’s seeking to solidify the Mountain West’s central role in the quantum industry. The U.S. Department of Commerce in 2023 awarded $40.5M to the effort, which unlocked matching funds of $77M from Colorado and $10M from New Mexico. The project also anticipates that more than $2B in private capital will follow the government money.

The feds also named Elevate Quantum as a Tech Hub, a designation aimed at marrying economic growth with mobility. The nonprofit coalition includes dozens of companies and colleges, as well as government, economic development, and workforce organizations. 

ActivateWork, a Denver-based nonprofit that offers tuition-free training for tech jobs through its partnerships with 50-plus employers, is part of the consortium. Helen Young Hayes, ActivateWork’s founder and CEO, describes Elevate Quantum as a massive, well-coordinated undertaking.

“The ecosystem is already unified,” she says. “It’s already built.”

Hayes says the federal grant is helping Elevate Quantum reach into K-12 schools, to give students the option to learn about the industry. The capital also allows the project to move faster and to reach more parts of the region, says Tara Gilboa, vice president of partnerships for Zal.ai.

“This grant is what allows us to accelerate the collaboration,” she says. “It will drive rural Colorado’s economic growth as well as the Front Range’s.”

Real-Time Data on Job Training

The workforce pipeline Zal and ActivateWork are helping to create focuses on job roles in computing and tech, manufacturing and cryogenics, and construction. Many of those jobs will not require a four-year degree, Hayes says. 

“Our goal is to build job descriptions that are skills-based,” she says, while also helping employers see what the talent pool looks like.

The Details: The project draws from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management System. Its leaders say they plan to develop 15 quantum job pathways this year, with a similar effort for the Tech Talent Partnership serving as a model. Gilboa says the final product will be a “regional data layer” for talent supply and demand management.

“We’re going to be able to build off the work we’ve already done in the state rather than duplicate it,” she says.

Quantum employers will meet quarterly to add and adjust skills needed for jobs in the fast-moving industry. Those skills then can be incorporated by participating education providers, which include K-12 schools, community colleges, universities, and noncollege training organizations. Hayes says curriculum development will move at least four times faster than it does in typical higher education programs.

The shared data platform, which is powered by Zal, measures the alignment of education programs with the needs of employers as well as opportunities for work-based learning, including apprenticeships.

“As a workforce intermediary, you need to be customer support for both sides,” says Hayes, “and we can’t do that without Zal.”

The project also is developing academic credit articulation agreements, so students can stack shorter-term credentials into degree programs without losing money or time.

The Kicker: “We’re building a demand-based, output-oriented system,” Hayes says. One that can “really be responsive to the needs of industry.”