Mapping Quantum Skills

A new industry and education coalition in four western states taps AI and government money to quickly develop training paths for careers in quantum technology, including for nondegree roles. Also, a roundup of recent federal cuts, and community colleges reimagine their role to transform whole communities.

Building a Path to Quantum Careers

The Mountain West is becoming a global epicenter for quantum computing and technology. In Colorado alone, the industry’s 3K current jobs are projected to grow to 30K over the next decade. Many of those well-paying roles won’t require an advanced degree, or even a four-year degree for thousands of anticipated jobs for welders, fabricators, and technicians.

An ambitious new project seeks to develop the quantum workforce pipeline, with a goal of training more than 10K workers for quantum careers by 2030. That effort includes an attempt to bridge the gap between education and industry by tapping artificial intelligence to help create nimble career pathways for the quantum sector.

“The cure is in the disease,” says Kayvon Touran, the CEO and cofounder of Zal.ai, the tech platform for the talent partnership project. 

Zal is working to process massive amounts of data while enabling education and workforce training providers to upload curricula, match them to employer-approved job descriptions, and develop fixes for closing skills gaps.

The Big Idea: The goal is to create job-preparation programs that can be tweaked quickly and often as the industry expands. “Let’s build a system that can evolve,” Touran says.

Elevate Quantum is the overarching consortium that’s seeking to solidify the Mountain West’s central role in the quantum industry. The U.S. Department of Commerce in 2023 awarded $40.5M to the effort, which unlocked matching funds of $77M from Colorado and $10M from New Mexico. The project also anticipates that more than $2B in private capital will follow the government money.

The feds also named Elevate Quantum as a Tech Hub, a designation aimed at marrying economic growth with mobility. The nonprofit coalition includes dozens of companies and colleges, as well as government, economic development, and workforce organizations. 

ActivateWork, a Denver-based nonprofit that offers tuition-free training for tech jobs through its partnerships with 50-plus employers, is part of the consortium. Helen Young Hayes, ActivateWork’s founder and CEO, describes Elevate Quantum as a massive, well-coordinated undertaking.

“The ecosystem is already unified,” she says. “It’s already built.”

Hayes says the federal grant is helping Elevate Quantum reach into K-12 schools, to give students the option to learn about the industry. The capital also allows the project to move faster and to reach more parts of the region, says Tara Gilboa, vice president of partnerships for Zal.ai.

“This grant is what allows us to accelerate the collaboration,” she says. “It will drive rural Colorado’s economic growth as well as the Front Range’s.”

The workforce pipeline Zal and ActivateWork are helping to create focuses on job roles in computing and tech, manufacturing and cryogenics, and construction. Many of those jobs will not require a four-year degree, Hayes says. 

“Our goal is to build job descriptions that are skills-based,” she says, while also helping employers see what the talent pool looks like.

The Details: The project draws from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Talent Pipeline Management System. Its leaders say they plan to develop 15 quantum job pathways this year, with a similar effort for the Tech Talent Partnership serving as a model. Gilboa says the final product will be a “regional data layer” for talent supply and demand management.

“We’re going to be able to build off the work we’ve already done in the state rather than duplicate it,” she says.

Quantum employers will meet quarterly to add and adjust skills needed for jobs in the fast-moving industry. Those skills then can be incorporated by participating education providers, which include K-12 schools, community colleges, universities, and noncollege training organizations. Hayes says curriculum development will move at least four times faster than it does in typical higher education programs.

The shared data platform, which is powered by Zal, measures the alignment of education programs with the needs of employers as well as opportunities for work-based learning, including apprenticeships.

“As a workforce intermediary, you need to be customer support for both sides,” says Hayes, “and we can’t do that without Zal.”

The project also is developing academic credit articulation agreements, so students can stack shorter-term credentials into degree programs without losing money or time.

The Kicker: “We’re building a demand-based, output-oriented system,” Hayes says. One that can “really be responsive to the needs of industry.”

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Roundup of Federal Action

The Education Department on Tuesday announced that it now has 2,183 employees, down from 4,133 before President Trump’s inauguration. Nearly 600 workers either retired or accepted voluntary resignation, while roughly 1,300 are being placed on administrative leave. Elon Musk’s DOGE is using artificial intelligence to identify potential cuts at the agency, and proposing the tech’s use to replace workers in some cases.

The department said it will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs” that fall under its purview, including Pell Grants and competitive grantmaking. Critics of the cuts say the department has lost invaluable institutional knowledge and that the slashing threatens core agency functions. Supporters say the department’s existence is not necessary for students to succeed, and that the staff cuts address redundancy and inefficiency in government.

Employees at the department’s National Center for Education Statistics were among those eliminated. But it remains unclear how many of those workers lost their jobs.

Apprenticeship Grants: A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Education Department’s February move to terminate $148M in teacher-training grants, including three federal awards for Reach Teachers College. That means $14.7M in funding has been reinstated for apprenticeship degree programs the nonprofit Reach University offers with community partners in Louisiana and Arkansas.

However, questions remain about how long the injunction will remain in place, or whether it applies beyond the eight blue states where attorneys general filed the legal challenge that resulted in the court decision.

CHIPS Office Cuts: The U.S. Department of Commerce earlier last week laid off 40 employees of the CHIPS Program Office, reports The New York Times. Those terminations account for nearly a third of staff at the office, which has played a key role in workforce development initiatives connected to the $52B CHIPS and Science Act’s bid to bring semiconductor manufacturing to the U.S.

The layoffs accompany Trump’s call for the repeal of the “horrible” CHIPS Act. However, many workforce pros remain hopeful that federal contracts under CHIPS will remain in place, echoing statements by several Senate Republicans.

Labor Department Moves: The Trump administration has eliminated the U.S. Department of Labor’s guidance for pre-apprenticeship programs, former department official Nick Beadle reports in his newsletter, Jobs That Work. The guidance defined what good pre-apprenticeship looks like, Beadle writes, to help other funders and participants avoid potential scammers and pre-apprenticeship programs that don’t lead to full registered apprenticeships.

The Senate on Monday confirmed Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labor secretary. The former Oregon congresswoman, who backs organized labor, was approved by a 67–32 vote.

Open Tabs

Jobs and Gen AI
About 50M U.S. jobs will be reshaped by generative AI, with entry-level roles shrinking in some fields while access expands in others, according to a new analysis by researchers at the Harvard Project on Managing the Future of Work and the Burning Glass Institute. Professions with steep learning curves, like software engineering and project management, may see fewer junior hires and narrower paths for advancement. Conversely, AI-driven tools could expand access to jobs built on discrete technical knowledge, such as electrical drafting and network administration.

Place-Bound
Students who attend beauty schools often fail to earn a credential that leads to sufficient employment and wages, according to an investigation by New America. The $2.2B for-profit cosmetology and beauty school industry has the highest projected program failure rate under gainful-employment standards of any U.S. postsecondary sector. New America recommends registered apprenticeship options for cosmetology careers and an evaluation of licensing hour requirements.

Career-Connected AP Courses
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the College Board announced a partnership to strengthen career pathways for high school students. As part of the AP Career Kickstart Program, the groups are working together on new Advanced Placement (AP) courses connected to two in-demand career fields, business and cybersecurity. The College Board is currently piloting two career-focused cyber courses, one on networking and one on security, and plans to roll out the cyber and business courses to high schools nationally in 2026–07.

Advanced Manufacturing
Workplaces where employees have clear pathways to internal advancement benefit through better profits and valuation, Angela Jackson, a senior advisor to Harvard University’s Project on Workforce, writes in her new book, The Win-Win Workplace. Jackson’s research for the book included an exploration of the workforces of more than 1,200 companies and surveys conducted in partnership with JUST Capital and the Burning Glass Institute.

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