Latest / Quickly Quantum / Diraq Plans Albuquerque Lab to Expand Silicon Qubit Testing — October 1, 2026
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- Before that, Diraq plans a New Mexico lab, Alice & Bob report a new way to stabilize cat qubits, and two X posts make claims worth separating from confirmed results. Welcome back to Quickly Quantum, your daily brief on the quantum frontier. It's Thursday, October 1, 2026. Let's get into it. A new lab in Albuquerque is in Diraq's plans, with operations expected to begin by the end of 2026, according to The Quantum Insider. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding, or MOU—a formal statement of intent—to establish the lab at Roadrunner Quantum Lab. So this is a planned facility, not an operating one yet. The Quantum Insider says the space will include cryogenic equipment, which lets researchers test devices at very low temperatures, and a dedicated measurement engineering team focused on quantum device testing and characterization. Diraq is developing silicon spin-qubit systems: qubits, or quantum bits, built from the spin of electrons in silicon. The lab is meant to expand its U.S. research and development presence. There's a state-policy angle here too. The Quantum Insider says New Mexico is supporting the expansion as part of its partnership with DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, a federal effort to verify and validate utility-scale quantum computing. Diraq is a performer in Stage B of that program, and state matching funds are helping build equipment and infrastructure. Diraq's founder and CEO, Andrew Dzurak, said the company is building processors with silicon because he believes it's the most economical and scalable way to reach the many millions of qubits customers will require. That's his case for the approach, and the company's target is 150,000 physical qubits on a single chip by 2029 and more than 2 million by 2031. Those are targets, not delivered chips. As @ABQJournal posted on X: "Roadrunner Quantum Lab opens as Diraq plans a research facility and New Mexico expands its quantum industry push." As @ABQJournal put it on X, the facility opening and Diraq's planned lab mark New Mexico's quantum industry push. For you, that's the practical test of these regional announcements—whether companies move from signing a plan to staffing a lab and doing measurable work there. A quieter change to a superconducting circuit could matter because controlling a quantum state takes hardware, and the control hardware can create noise of its own. A SQUID is a superconducting circuit used to control interactions; a cat qubit stores information in a resonator state designed to help protect it from errors. In standard implementations, the report says, strong microwave pumps remove photon pairs from a memory cavity into a lossy buffer. Those pumps can introduce unwanted frequency shifts, called Kerr nonlinearities, that degrade the quantum state's fidelity. The team instead applied a steady, microvolt-scale direct-current voltage bias across a Josephson-junction SQUID. In plain English, they changed how the circuit is driven, aiming to get the useful interaction without those microwave pump tones. By tuning the DC voltage, the researchers demonstrated selective one-to-one, two-to-one, and four-to-one photon conversion. That is a lab result, not a processor milestone. Those are meaningful circuit details; the question is whether the approach holds up when these components have to work together in a multi-qubit system. Why care if you're not designing a fridge full of quantum hardware? A control method that reduces unwanted heat and simplifies wiring could make a future system easier to engineer. For now, the result is a specific technique with measured parameters, and the next proof has to come from scaling beyond this demonstration. So the claim about shallow depth comes with a substantial resource requirement. Quantum networking has a bullish investor pitch: @InvestorDenis posted on X: "$IONQ $INFQ When the computers arrive, the TAM will expand exponentially." Treat this as one investor's market argument, not a confirmed forecast. Now, from forecasts about where the industry might go to what a state is paying to build now. So the question is whether a state can use research hubs, startup support, and infrastructure to anchor a lasting quantum industry. Here's the name for the idea: California is treating quantum and fusion as an industrial infrastructure bet. That's my framing of the announcement. For a first-time listener, quantum computers use quantum bits that can behave in ways ordinary computer bits cannot, while fusion research aims to produce energy by combining atomic nuclei. Both fields need specialized research and engineering capacity; this is why a state might want the people and institutions working on them nearby. The report describes it as a joint quantum and deep-space allocation. The signed bills have separate, more specific purposes. Senate Bill 925, sponsored by Senator Jerry McNerney, directs the California Energy Commission to establish a strategic plan, certification protocols, and environmental review frameworks for commercializing fusion energy and scaling advanced fusion manufacturing. Assembly Bill 2647, sponsored by Assemblymember Lisa Calderon, mandates a statewide technical assessment of integrating advanced nuclear technologies to support grid reliability toward California's target of 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2045. That distinction matters: the bills are about fusion and nuclear assessment, while the quantum piece is in the budget allocation. The package links the subjects politically and economically, but it doesn't make every bill a quantum measure. The report says it would fund public university capital projects, medical innovations, and emerging technology research, with the stated aim of mitigating potential federal research funding fluctuations. For the quantum side, the story also points to a UCLA Quantum Innovation Hub at UCLA Research Park. It also describes an on-site entanglement-swapping testbed, a setup to model how quantum connections can be extended across multiple network nodes. That's a more concrete picture than a funding headline alone: the state's approach connects university research, startup incubation, manufacturing infrastructure, and a named industry partnership. So what can you judge today? The scope and the political commitment are visible; how quickly the money reaches projects is still an open question. The harder question is whether public investment can make those pieces reinforce one another. My read is that California is framing quantum and fusion as jobs and energy security, not just science. That's a persuasive way to make these fields matter to people who don't spend their day thinking about qubits—but the framing only earns its keep if it leads to durable technical capacity. A state can help build the conditions for that capacity: researchers need facilities, startups need places to develop technology, and hardware efforts depend on a supply chain. The report's description names those categories, but a funding announcement doesn't tell you whether the pieces will connect in practice. Those limits shape how much we can conclude from the headline. There's also an important separation of timelines and tools. Meanwhile, the quantum allocation is a budget commitment described as supporting infrastructure and research. Putting them in one announcement makes a coherent political package, but these are different mechanisms with different next steps. And the stakes aren't only about attracting a company name. If a regional hub leads to sustained research and engineering activity, universities, startups, and workers could benefit. If funding spreads thinly across goals without producing activity that lasts, the announcement may prove more effective as a signal than as a build-out. That's my analysis, not a reported outcome. What would change my view? A clear disbursement schedule, followed by evidence of projects moving into the hubs and infrastructure the state says it wants to support. Until then, the strongest thing we have is a statement of direction: California is linking quantum research with industrial capacity and presenting fusion as part of the same economic strategy. That direction is worth taking seriously; the delivery is still the test. Time for the Hype Check. If California follows through, universities, startup teams, and workers building quantum infrastructure stand to gain; taxpayers and researchers lose if the money disperses without durable labs, supply-chain capacity, or technical work to show for it. If you want a clear read on quantum claims without needing a physics degree, follow Quickly Quantum wherever you listen. This has been Quickly Quantum, an AI-voiced podcast, created and built by a real human using today's cutting-edge technology. Nothing you heard on this show is financial advice. I'm Brian Lampert, and I'll catch you all tomorrow — take care! Watching on YouTube? Hit subscribe, and tomorrow's briefing will be waiting for you. I also host Concrete Compute: a daily briefing on the AI buildout. The datacenters, the megawatts, and who actually pays for them. Find it wherever you get your podcasts.