The Technology & Innovation Office (TIO) of Economic Development New Mexico has awarded $1.2 million in non-dilutive capital through the inaugural New Mexico Quantum Technologies Award. Divided into competitive $200,000 grants, the program funds early-stage hardware, optics, and software developers committed to expanding or establishing operational hubs in the state.
All six awardees are required to maintain active New Mexico operations for at least two years. The initiative reinforces New Mexico’s strategy to build a regional quantum ecosystem alongside the Elevate Quantum Tech Hub and DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI).
The Grant Cohort Breakdown
The $1.2 million allocation funds three established in-state firms and entices three out-of-state companies to establish regional facilities:
- Bandelier Technologies ($200k): Spun out of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) via the NM Lab-Embedded Entrepreneur Program, the Santa Fe startup builds quantum sensing hardware and AI models for defense, telecom, and critical infrastructure.
- Mesa Photonics ($200k): Based in Santa Fe, the company manufactures ultrafast, squeezed laser sources for scientific R&D and quantum system integration.
- UbiQD ($200k): A LANL and MIT spin-off in Los Alamos, the firm manufactures quantum dots for advanced photonics and is constructing a large-scale state production facility.
- Conductor Quantum ($200k): Expanding from San Francisco, the startup develops natural-language AI software interfaces (Coda) used by tech partners like NVIDIA and Arm to automate QPU operations.
- Mesa Quantum ($200k): Expanding its Albuquerque footprint, the venture-backed company commercializes chip-scale atomic clocks and quantum-optimized VCSELs (Q-VCSELs™) based on Sandia and NIST laboratory IP.
- Photon Queue ($200k): Spun out of UIUC, the Chicago-based startup builds room-temperature, free-space optical quantum memory devices, establishing its test assembly facility at the Roadrunner Quantum Lab in Albuquerque.
Review the official announcement via the Economic Development New Mexico Press Room here. For previous individual company coverage, read the Photon Queue Expansion Briefing on QCR here.
July 21, 2026
