Emerging Technology, Quantum Ecosystem

eMerge Americas hosts launch of Florida Quantum initiative

Avatar of Ivy Delaney
October 1, 2026 by Ivy Delaney

Just one week after the federal government announced the Genesis Mission, leaders in Florida’s technology and venture sectors launched Florida Quantum at eMerge Americas’ Tech Basel AI Summit Miami. This new statewide initiative aims to accelerate quantum innovation across the state by connecting private industry and government. The effort intends to strengthen Florida’s position in the global quantum landscape and inspire quantum companies to build within the state.

Florida Quantum Initiative Launches at Tech Basel Miami AI Summit

The Tech Basel AI Summit Miami served as the venue for the December 3, 2025 launch of Florida Quantum, an initiative designed to rapidly organize and accelerate quantum innovation within the state’s borders. This announcement followed closely on the heels of the federal government’s unveiling of the Genesis Mission, establishing a clear and immediate response to national investment in quantum technologies. Florida Quantum aims to connect private industry and government entities to bolster the state’s position in the global quantum landscape, with a focus on encouraging a sustainable ecosystem for research and commercialization.

Co-leading the initiative are Matt Cimaglia, founder & managing partner of Quantum Coast Capital and Tony Jimenez, managing partner of Medina Ventures, working in collaboration with the Florida Alliance for Quantum Technology (FAQT) and eMerge Americas. The effort is designed to complement existing federal initiatives under the White House’s Office of Science & Technology Policy, the U.S.

Department of Commerce, and other agencies, recognizing quantum technology as a critical area for future development. Operating through the website FloridaQuantum. org, the initiative will function as a central point of contact for stakeholders across the quantum ecosystem. Florida has long been a launchpad for technological revolutions from the early days of computing to the modern aerospace era, Cimaglia emphasized the state’s historical role in technological advancement.

Florida Quantum prioritizes the creation of viable business opportunities as the primary driver of statewide growth, anticipating that successful companies will accelerate improvements in educational systems and workforce development. The initiative will coordinate quantum efforts across the state, engage accelerator programs and establish pathways for capital investment into quantum-focused companies and research.

Simultaneously, it will support workforce development, beginning with early exposure to quantum concepts in K-12 education, to prepare students for future demand. “Connecting Florida’s universities, investors, and leading quantum companies with federal and private partners, we are building a sustainable ecosystem that drives research, with a path to commercialization, and long-term job creation in quantum technologies,” Jimenez explained, outlining the initiative’s comprehensive approach.

Initially funded through private sources, Florida Quantum will operate as a coalition, forging partnerships, venture networks and federal agencies to advocate for state legislation that attracts leading quantum companies. This legislative focus aims to expand Florida’s role in the national quantum economy building on the momentum of the recent Quantum Beach gathering, which convened key players in the field.

The initiative’s structure mirrors those established in states like Maryland, Illinois, New Mexico and Connecticut, which have all created statewide quantum alliances to serve as central coordination points for companies seeking engagement with government. The launch of Florida Quantum is intended to strengthen the existing work of the 15-university Florida Alliance for Quantum Technologies (FAQT), representing a bold step by the private sector to expand and reinforce the state’s quantum ecosystem. According to Florida Secretary of Commerce J.

Alex Kelly, “By uniting public and private partners across education and the quantum industry, this initiative will support the technologies essential to national defense, cybersecurity, health innovations, financial services, data security and the future of transportation and logistics.” The initiative’s organizers believe that a coordinated approach is essential for Florida to not merely participate in the quantum revolution, but to lead it. With quantum, we’re organizing early to ensure Florida doesn’t just participate, we lead, Cimaglia stated, highlighting the proactive stance of the initiative.

Florida Quantum aims to connect state and federal efforts while simultaneously encouraging investment and workforce development, recognizing that a robust quantum ecosystem requires a multi-faceted approach. The initiative will prioritize real-world applications and business opportunities, believing that commercial success will drive faster innovation and create a self-sustaining cycle of growth within the state’s quantum sector. This focus on practical implementation distinguishes Florida Quantum from purely academic or research-focused initiatives, positioning it as a catalyst for economic development and technological leadership.

Florida Quantum represents a bold step by the private sector to expand and strengthen Florida’s quantum ecosystem, working to compliment the recently launched 15-university Florida Alliance for Quantum Technologies (FAQT) mission.

J. Alex Kelly, Florida Secretary of Commerce
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Ivy Delaney

Ivy Delaney has been working with neural networks and machine learning since the mid-nineties, back when a couple of hidden layers and a long afternoon of training counted as ambitious. She has watched the field go from academic curiosity to the thing quietly running underneath everything, and she brings that long view to quantum computing. For Quantum Zeitgeist she covers the ground where the two fields meet. That means quantum machine learning and the variational algorithms it leans on, and it also means the less glamorous but more interesting story of classical machine learning already doing real work inside quantum machines, decoding error-correcting codes, calibrating noisy hardware and learning the error models that simulators depend on. She writes about the hardware those algorithms have to run on too, and about the post-quantum cryptography scramble that the same hardware has set off. Her stories typically start with the paper, whether that is peer-reviewed work, conference proceedings or an arXiv preprint, with the source linked so you can hold a claim up against the research it came from. She is unimpressed by benchmarks that will not say what they beat, and by demonstrations that only work in the press release.

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