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TECH
'Silicon Valley has come to New Mexico,' state official says
On a panel at Austin’s annual South by Southwest, or SXSW, festival on Monday, boosters for the state pitched New Mexico as an emerging deep tech hub.
It was the second presentation of New Mexico House at SXSW — building off last year’s exhibition showcasing New Mexico to the crowd at the Texas city’s famous music, arts and cultural and media festival.
New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rob Black spoke about how New Mexico has the second-largest sovereign wealth fund in the country — and how it is now investing in venture capital funds focused on deep technology like quantum computing.
Nora Meyers Sackett, director of the New Mexico Economic Development Department’s Technology and Innovation Office, moderated a panel about the state’s efforts to establish New Mexico as a destination for the quantum computing industry.
She pitched the University of New Mexico’s “leading graduate quantum physics program”and said that “for every trained quantum worker in the Mountain West region, there are three open positions.” She pointed to Central New Mexico Community College’s Quantum Technician boot camp as a part of the state’s effort to close that gap.
“So you may think that every person who works in quantum needs a Ph.D. or is an engineer or is a quantum physicist, and that's just not the case,” Meyers Sackett said. “There are a lot of positions that are accessible without higher education … ”
Chris Cassidy, director of private equity and venture capital for the New Mexico State Investment Council, also gave opening remarks to a startup showcase that featured companies like Qunnect, a New York company that started a quantum computing network in Albuquerque.
Qunnect announced in February the launch of ABQ-Net, which it describes as America’s first open-access entanglement-based quantum network.
The network is located in a building at 123 Central NW, on a data center campus owned by bigbyte.cc Corp. The facility opened thanks, in part, to millions of dollars in state funds issued by the Economic Development Department to Roadrunner Venture Studios, which invests in deep-technology companies.
Noel Goddard, CEO of Qunnect, was also on the quantum panel.
“It is the role of government to try to assist VC … particularly in these sort of daring fields like fusion and quantum things that are not yielding benefit in the sort of three-to-five-year standard venture timeline,” Goddard said.
In August, the Economic Development Department announced a $25 million investment “to establish and operate a quantum venture studio, strengthening New Mexico’s position as a hub for quantum technology and industry growth.” The state chose to spend the money through Roadrunner Venture Studios, which proposed to build a studio in Albuquerque’s Innovation District.
Maggie Newman, senior manager for community and studio operations at Roadrunner Venture Studios, said Roadrunner Venture’s 30,000-square-foot facility will be built with vibration isolation slabs to support some of the computing work, but will also feature “office space, conference room space … where everybody can work together.”
“When I say everybody, I actually mean we’re including the national labs in that working facility,” Newman said. “So companies, industry partners, have the opportunity to come to Albuquerque to work literally right alongside national labs in the Quantum Demonstration Facility.”
Newman added: “We don’t feel like we need to build Silicon Valley in New Mexico because Silicon Valley has come to New Mexico.”
At other panels, a state energy official spoke with an executive of Pattern Energy, the company behind the massive 550-mile SunZia transmission line and associated wind farms.
A handful of other officials in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s administration were also in attendance, including New Mexico Department of Tourism Deputy Secretary Shanna Sasser and Anna Aguilera, senior policy adviser to the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department.
The participation was all in an effort to shine a light on the state’s economic development efforts in tech and energy — sectors the state sees as major players in the Land of Enchantment’s future.
Justin Horwath covers tech and energy for the Journal. You can reach him at [email protected].
