NIST commits $20 million to SRI-run center for quantum manufacturing
The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology has signed an agreement with SRI International to establish a Quantum Manufacturing Engineering Center, backed by an initial $20 million, to speed production of scalable quantum components and systems.
The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology has entered into an agreement with SRI International under which the nonprofit research and development organization will establish a Quantum Manufacturing Engineering Center, or QMEC, to accelerate the manufacture of scalable, high-performance quantum components and systems. The announcement was made on June 29, 2026, from NIST’s campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and carries an initial NIST investment of $20 million.
According to NIST, the center’s work will focus on advancing the enabling technologies that quantum systems are built on — cryostats and lasers among them — as a way of making components and full systems easier to produce. The stated goal is to drive substantial growth in the U.S. quantum industry, with applications cited in sensing, communications, cryptography, computing and biomedicine. NIST said it expects QMEC to deliver results that remove engineering and manufacturing barriers and demonstrate market adoption, while SRI’s own material describes the center as also identifying opportunities and gaps within the quantum supply chain.
NIST framed the agreement as an action implementing the goals of an executive order on quantum innovation signed on June 22, 2026, one week before the announcement. That order calls for improving the commercial readiness of quantum sensing and quantum sensor manufacturing, and for supporting research and development pathways that clear manufacturing obstacles. The agency also placed the center within its “Strategy for American Technology Leadership in the 21st Century,” describing it as one step in carrying that strategy out.
The two organizations are not new partners. NIST said it began working with SRI in 2019, when the pair set up the Quantum Economic Development Consortium under the National Quantum Initiative Act. QED-C now includes most of the leading U.S. quantum technology developers along with numerous end users, and NIST said its engagement with the consortium and with American quantum firms is what identified quantum manufacturing engineering as a critical gap in building a commercial quantum industry. SRI, for its part, has long held a mission of translating emerging technologies into commercial use.
Deputy Secretary of Commerce Paul Dabbar and Arvind Raman, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST director, both commented on the announcement, according to the agency’s press release. NIST said it plans to make similar use of flexible public-private partnerships across other critical and emerging technologies, naming artificial intelligence, quantum information science and technology, and biotechnology.
Next, SRI is to stand up the center, with NIST’s initial $20 million supporting its activities.