Colorado School of Mines and Elevate Quantum broke ground Monday on a project that is expected to serve as an incubator for quantum technology.

Called Quantum Commons at Arvada, the project is being built on 70 acres at 18300 State Highway 72. Colorado School of Mines bought the land last month for $14M, the Denver Business Journal reported.

The development is being undertaken by a consortium of businesses with $40.5M in federal funding that came along with Colorado being named a quantum computing hub by the Biden administration earlier this year.

The funding was awarded to the Elevate Quantum Tech Hub, the consortium led by Elevate Quantum, to implement three projects that “will bolster the region’s ability to scale up the production and delivery of critical technologies that will maintain America’s competitive edge in quantum computing,” according to a U.S. Economic Development Administration release.

Development of the site includes the renovation of a 30K SF lab building and the construction of an adjacent fabrication facility.

The terms of the Economic Development Administration grant require the facility to become operational within 12 to 18 months, according to Elevate Quantum CEO Zachary Yerushalmi.

“This site is positioned to really be the center of quantum technology,” Gov. Jared Polis said at the groundbreaking, according to the DBJ. “We already have a greater concentration — both in absolute and per-capita terms of quantum capabilities and jobs — than anywhere else in the U.S., and we’re excited that this will be home to unique and critical capabilities for quantum.”

Quantum technology is based on the principles of quantum mechanics and appears in some everyday devices like smartphones. Quantum technology also has the potential to improve computing, communications, navigation and healthcare imaging.

Industry advocates said the new Arvada facility and technology developed there could become the cornerstone of a regional tech hub.

“Quantum gives us a path to end infectious disease. It will cure cancer. It’ll turn back the clock on climate change. The things we know it can do will fundamentally transform civilization,” Corban Tillemann-Dick, founder of Denver-based Maybell Quantum, told The Colorado Sun. “That’s why this place matters. The Quantum Commons isn’t just these 70 acres. It’s our Bell Labs, our Stanford Research Park, our Apollo program.”

Elevate Quantum is also reportedly developing plans for an additional site in Boulder that will also function as a quantum incubator.