Utah bets on quantum computing as state seeks place in emerging industry SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Utah is moving to establish itself in the emerging quantum computing industry, betting that early investment and coordination could help the state capture jobs and technological opportunities even as researchers caution that practical quantum computers remain years away. The initiative, launched through an executive order signed Monday by Gov. Spencer Cox, known as the Utah Quantum Initiative, is a statewide effort to accelerate research, commercialization, workforce development and advanced manufacturing in quantum technology. The executive order establishes a Quantum Coordination Council led by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. The council will bring together leaders from state government, higher education and industry to coordinate Utah’s quantum strategy and better position the state for private investment and federal opportunities. Ryan Camacho, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at BYU who provided input on Utah's initiative, said the field had changed dramatically since he attended graduate school in the early 2000s, when quantum computing largely centered around physicists conducting experiments. “We're definitely in the middle of an inflection point,” Camacho said. “It's interesting times.” Quantum computers operate differently from the conventional computers used in homes and businesses. Traditional computers encode information in bits represented as zeros or ones. Quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, which can exploit properties including entanglement. Quantum algorithms must manipulate the possible computational paths and then use interference to produce a useful result. “The hard part,” he said, is interfering the wave-like behavior of quantum particles in a way that yields the correct answer. Researchers also face a difficult hardware problem. Qubits are highly susceptible to disturbances from their surroundings. Small effects can introduce errors, and because qubits can be entangled with one another, an error affecting one can