Blog Posts

How a $500,000 state investment in IonQ follows the same playbook that turned a tanker deal into the jet age and a CIA cloud contract into AWS's federal dominance — and what it will take to run that play again in quantum.

Washington put just $500,000 behind IonQ's manufacturing site this year — a fraction of what other states are spending to chase quantum. But Washington's edge was never the size of the check. From Boeing's tanker deal to AWS's CIA contract, the state has a track record of turning modest government investment into outsized commercial advantage. In the first piece of a new series on Washington's quantum strategy, WTIA, NQN, and Moonbeam Exchange explain how the state can run that playbook again.

A new 2026 report from WTIA, the Northwest Quantum Nexus, and Moonbeam maps Washington's quantum computing strengths — and the concrete steps needed to lead a $2.7 trillion global market.

Washington already has what takes most states a decade to build: research depth, corporate anchors, and manufacturing capacity in quantum computing. This new report from WTIA, the Northwest Quantum Nexus, and Moonbeam maps the state's quantum ecosystem and lays out five concrete moves — from federal funding capture to workforce development — to help Washington claim its share of a $2.7 trillion global opportunity by 2035.

The definitive map of who founded what, and where they came from, across Washington's tech ecosystem

WTIA's iconic Tech Universe Map returns for the first time since 2015, a 625-company star chart tracing how Washington's founders connect back to Microsoft, UW, Amazon, and beyond. See what's changed in a decade, and order your own copy.