The National Science Foundation recently named QuantumCT one of 12 Regional Innovation Engines and awarded $15 million now, and up to $160 million over the next decade if milestones are met.
The funding comes on top of the state’s $121 million commitment to the quantum industry. Coverage of the award has rightly credited UConn, Yale and the industry partners. Four years of work earned it.
But here is what the $281 million does not do: It does not decide who ends up inside the very economy it funds. That decision is still open. The quantum workforce this investment is meant to build doesn’t exist yet—not here, not anywhere.
The advantage of arriving early is still available. The question is who Connecticut decides gets that advantage.
Left to default, we already know the answer, because we’ve watched the same movie every technology cycle: The pipeline fills from the same well-resourced districts, the same families positioned to buy proximity to whatever comes next through premier after-school programs and tutors. Students who would benefit most from an early foothold often arrive last.
That’s not a conspiracy. It’s simply the default — the way systems continue unless someone intentionally changes them. The unexamined assumption is that the work is too advanced, that quantum computing requires years of accumulated preparation that some students have and others don’t.
We tested that assumption.
Connecticut-based workforce development nonprofit dae runs the state’s first high school quantum computing program — one of only about three in-person programs in the country. Since its launch, 40 students have completed daeZERO, including participants in New Haven through funding from Yale University and others in Stamford through a long-term partnership with the Synchrony Skills Academy.
All of those students came from public schools, and none had previous exposure to quantum computing. Every one of them learned to program actual IBM quantum computers — not simulations.
Our experience over six years and with more than 1,250 students points to the same conclusion: Despite actively seeking students with little or no computer science experience, 100% of our high school seniors enter college; roughly 85% declare STEM majors.
The constraint was never the students. It was the design of what reached them, and when.
This fall we launch daeQUANTA, a 10-month, industry-centered professional route to formal quantum computing credentials, the first of its kind in the country. It’s built for public school students before they set foot in college.
A dollar invested in a student at 16 can do something a dollar invested at 22 can’t: Put them on a path into the field while the opportunity is still new.
Universities and community colleges are essential, but if the workforce strategy starts at college enrollment, it inherits every sorting mechanism that operated before enrollment. The pipeline will continue to fill from the usual places, and we will call the result a talent shortage.
Instead, officials should consider another option: Dedicating 10% of the combined potential state and federal quantum industry funding package — about $2.8 million annually over the life of the grant — to Connecticut public high school students. That investment could dramatically expand the state’s quantum talent pipeline by leveraging programs that already operate on real quantum hardware and have measurable results.
Based on our model, that investment could support 100 public high school seniors each year through an intensive credential program, while introducing another 700 students to foundational quantum skills.
Over time, Connecticut could build a homegrown quantum workforce instead of relying primarily on talent developed elsewhere.
A.M. Bhatt is the founder and CEO of dae, a Connecticut workforce development nonprofit operating campuses in New Haven and Stamford.
