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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore on Tuesday joined University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines and IonQ President and CEO Peter Chapman to announce a landmark public-private partnership to catalyze $1 billion in investments and position the state as a global leader in quantum information science and technology.The “Capital of Quantum” initiative was introduced at an event highlighting Moore’s 2025 economic growth agenda held at IonQ, a leading quantum computing and networking firm founded on UMD research and headquartered in the university’s Discovery District.

Artistic creativity has always held an element of mystery, and now it’s combining with the uncanny branch of physics that helps explain some of our universe’s deepest workings while powering a new generation of technology.

For all the vast complexity of the quantum world, Peter Chapman can break things down pretty simply. Chapman is president and CEO of IonQ, the only publicly traded pure-play quantum computing company in the world. Headquartered in College Park, Maryland, it is among the most promising players in the emerging quantum computing space.“We’re not talking about a small change in computational power here,” Chapman says. “We’re talking about solving problems in one second that would take 300 trillion years on the world’s largest supercomputer. That’s what the excitement’s all about.”