$1.3M is awarded to Chattanooga’s Entrepreneur Center to lead new quantum initiative
The news was revealed in a note from the Chief Executive Officer of The Company Lab, Tasia Malakasis.
The Chattanooga community loves to chat about quantum. But, they don’t just talk about it. They do something about it. And, a recent grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) is proof that the rest of the country is taking notice.
The Company Lab (CO.LAB), which is Launch Tennessee’s Chattanooga-based entrepreneur center partner, is a sub-awardee of a $1.3 million investment from the NSF to help establish the QuantumGrid Innovation Hub.
According to Tashia Malakasis, the CEO of the CO.LAB, the QuantumGrid Innovation Hub is a first-of-its-kind testbed designed to advance quantum-enabled cybersecurity solutions for the nation’s energy grid.
“This award reinforces Chattanooga’s growing role as a center for innovation in energy, mobility, and quantum technologies. It also creates new opportunities for our region’s entrepreneurs to contribute to one of the most critical challenges of our time: securing the resilience of America’s energy infrastructure,” she said in the CO.LAB newsletter.
With the nation’s first commercially available quantum network, an advanced smart grid, and a collaborative network of founders, researchers, and partners, Chattanooga could be uniquely positioned to support this next phase of technological development.
The Innovation Hub will focus on:
- Challenge-driven innovation through reverse pitch sessions led by utilities and infrastructure partners
- Startup acceleration in cybersecurity, quantum, and advanced energy systems
- Commercialization pathways connecting research to real-world deployment
“At CO.LAB, we believe that innovation grounded in community can help shape how emerging technologies serve society. That belief has guided our work from sustainable mobility to advanced energy—and now into quantum,” Malakasis said in the newsletter.
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