Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey stood in a windowless room on the seventh floor of MIT’s Samberg Conference Center and promised the state’s $25 million investment in a Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL) at MIT would be good for the state.
“The [return on investment] is clear on this,” Healey said. “The quantum systems laboratory will be a first-in-the-world center for the shared study and development of quantum science and technology. It’s going to connect and unleash the brainpower of scientists and innovators from around the state and across the world and also be a place for collaboration, both for academic and commercial ventures.”
The QSL will be a shared use facility, a “quantum toolbox” for students and researchers from MIT and other institutions that call Massachusetts home. Quantum computing uses quantum mechanics, the core of subatomic physics, to solve problems that most classical computers can’t.
The $25 million state investment matches $25 million in federal funding for the lab. MIT has also made an investment, as have private funders, though the total amount has not been disclosed. The state’s investment comes from its Commonwealth Federal Match and Debt Reduction Fund, which pulls from interest earned from the state’s stabilization fund.
With Healey on Thursday was MIT President Sally Kornbluth, mere hours before the school’s 2026 commencement ceremony. Kornbluth said quantum computing has practical applications in things such as encryption, detecting low levels of molecules in a person’s bloodstream, and streamlining the use of artificial intelligence.
“We’re talking about a revolution in the technological workforce and a lot of the students who are training in our universities now will be experts in this arena and will have jobs that we can’t even imagine now,” Kornbluth said.
The QSL will be located at 60 Vassar Street, also known as MIT’s Building 39. Construction for the QSL will begin in June and is expected to wrap up by Dec. 2027. The project will create 164 construction jobs, and the QSL itself is expected to create many more, Healey told reporters after her remarks.
Both leaders said the laboratory would help maintain Massachusetts as a technology leader. “It’s really to make Massachusetts a quantum center, it’s not just about renovating a building at MIT,” Kornbluth said.
“It is true that the concentration of talent in quantum is right here in Greater Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Healey said. “I want that talent, of course, to stay here. I want it to expand here.”
Research undeterred
Earlier this month, Kornbluth shared a video message with the MIT community acknowledging a 10 percent drop in the school’s campus research activity from just a year ago, due to declines in federal research funding. She also said graduate student enrollment has decreased due to the Trump administration’s policy changes involving international students.
On Thursday, Kornbluth said administrators are trying to keep MIT in international students’ minds as an option for higher learning. Acknowledging the presence of domestic students, Kornbluth said she’s “not concerned about having sufficient students to be able to work on this quantum initiative, it’s just that we want to be open and available to the very best talent around the world.”
Healey said the Trump administration’s targeting of research makes supporting and defending science more important than ever.
“You (Kornbluth) make clear that MIT is not deterred,” Healey said. “I can assure you that Massachusetts is not deterred. We will defend science, we will work to advance science for the common good.”
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