NIST Grant Powers FAU’s Push to Train South Florida’s Quantum Cybersecurity Workforce

Quantum computing has long been framed as a race to build ever more powerful machines, but a quieter and arguably more urgent race is now underway: the race to train people who can defend critical systems against the security disruptions that quantum technology will bring. Florida Atlantic University has just secured a significant foothold in that race. The university’s College of Engineering and Computer Science has been awarded a $200,000 cooperative agreement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the U.S. Department of Commerce agency responsible for developing the cybersecurity standards that underpin much of the digital economy. The funding will establish a regional quantum cybersecurity workforce ecosystem serving Palm Beach and Broward counties and the Treasure Coast communities of Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, an area that includes ports, utilities, research institutions and a dense concentration of critical infrastructure.

The award places FAU among a select group of institutions. It is one of only nine organizations in eight states chosen for NIST’s Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate, or RAMPS, Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development program. The RAMPS model is deliberately regional: rather than funding isolated courses, it builds on existing workforce partnerships to connect employers, educators and community organizations so that local cybersecurity education translates directly into local career pathways. In the case of FAU, that means knitting together a university with growing quantum capabilities, a major quantum computing company, school districts, utilities, federal law enforcement outreach networks and community organizations into a single talent pipeline.

Timing is central to the project’s logic. Quantum computing is advancing from laboratory curiosity toward practical application, and with that transition comes a class of cybersecurity challenges that today’s workforce is largely unprepared to address. Quantum systems will not merely accelerate computation; they will change the assumptions on which much of modern cryptography and infrastructure protection rests. At the same time, the emergence of quantum techniques creates new attack surfaces and new defensive tools that security professionals will need to understand. Yet, as FAU researchers note, few workforce development programs anywhere provide hands-on training that integrates quantum computing, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure protection in one curriculum. The FAU project, titled Building the Quantum Cybersecurity Workforce in the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast Region, is designed to fill precisely that gap.

A distinguishing feature of the initiative is the hardware behind it. Through its partnership with D-Wave Quantum Inc., a publicly traded quantum computing company, FAU will become the first university in Florida to publicly host a dedicated annealing quantum computer, a D-Wave Advantage2 system with more than 4,400 qubits, on its Boca Raton campus. Annealing quantum computers differ from the gate-based machines developed by other vendors; they are engineered specifically for optimization problems, exploring vast solution spaces to find configurations that minimize a defined cost function. That makes them directly relevant to problems in power grid management, logistics and scheduling, and it also makes them a realistic platform on which students can study how quantum systems behave, how they can be secured and how they might be used or misused in attacks on infrastructure.

Stella Batalama, dean of FAU’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, framed the award as a natural extension of the university’s existing investments. According to Batalama, the NIST award builds directly on Florida Atlantic’s commitment to quantum computing and the college’s strengths in cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, advanced computing and power infrastructure systems. With the D-Wave Advantage2 quantum computer arriving on the Boca Raton campus, she said, the university is building the infrastructure, expertise and workforce needed for the next generation of computing, and the new initiative extends that investment into quantum cybersecurity by giving students and professionals hands-on experience with emerging technologies while preparing the talent needed to protect critical systems.

The project will be led by Yufei Tang, principal investigator, associate professor in FAU’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, director of the FPL Center for Intelligent Energy Technologies, known as InETech, and faculty fellow of FAU’s Institute for Smarter Cities, Spaces, and Health. Co-principal investigators are Hari Kalva, chair and professor, and Zebo Yang, assistant professor, both from the same department. Tang’s dual role is telling: the InETech Center provides a real-world research and training environment for power and energy systems, including advanced simulation and hardware-in-the-loop capabilities, which means participants can experiment on faithful replicas of grid infrastructure rather than abstract models. Hardware-in-the-loop testing, in which physical control devices are connected to simulated power systems in real time, is a standard technique for validating grid cybersecurity, and coupling it with quantum computing resources is an unusual and technically ambitious combination.

Tang described the educational challenge in stark terms. Quantum computing, he said, is changing not only what computers can do but also what cybersecurity professionals need to know. The project will bring together quantum computing, cybersecurity and critical-infrastructure expertise to give participants practical experience with technologies and security challenges that are emerging now. By combining hands-on training, real-world case studies, access to quantum computing resources and direct engagement with industry and government partners, the team aims to produce a workforce prepared to secure systems in a quantum-enabled future. That formulation reflects a growing consensus among standards bodies, including NIST itself, that the transition to post-quantum cryptography and quantum-aware security practices will require years of preparation across both the public and private sectors.

D-Wave’s involvement signals the industry dimension of the effort. Allison Schwartz, the company’s senior vice president of global government relations and public affairs, said D-Wave is proud to partner with FAU on preparing the next generation of quantum and cybersecurity professionals. As quantum computing moves from research laboratories into real-world applications, she noted, developing a workforce that understands both the opportunities and the cybersecurity implications of these technologies is essential. By combining D-Wave’s quantum technologies with FAU’s academic strengths and regional partnerships, the program is intended to create a pipeline of talent equipped to address the challenges and opportunities of the quantum era. For students, access to a production-grade annealing system rather than a cloud simulator represents a meaningful difference in training fidelity.

The consortium assembled around the project is unusually broad. Key partners include D-Wave; the InfraGard South Florida Members Alliance, which connects the FBI with private-sector critical infrastructure stakeholders; the School District of Palm Beach County; Broward County Public Schools; and Alexander D. Henderson University School, FAU’s public laboratory school serving elementary and middle school students. The inclusion of K-12 partners means the program is not aimed solely at university students and working professionals but also at early pipeline development, introducing younger students to quantum and cybersecurity concepts before they reach college. On the professional side, the project will build on FAU’s established cybersecurity workforce programs, including its National Science Foundation-supported CyberCorps Scholarship for Service and CyberTraining initiatives, layering quantum content onto proven structures.

Concretely, the initiative will deliver a hands-on Quantum Cybersecurity Workshop Series along with reusable curriculum, case studies and online training materials aligned with the NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity and CyberSeek, the federal tools that standardize cybersecurity roles, skills and career pathways. Participants will also have access to mentoring, internships and employer engagement, while a regional consortium will connect universities, K-12 schools, industry, government, utilities and community organizations across the served counties. Crucially, the NIST-funded project is designed to outlast the grant itself: the shared curriculum, online training, employer engagement mechanisms and the regional consortium are intended to establish a lasting framework for quantum cybersecurity workforce development in South Florida. For FAU, the award reinforces a broader ambition. The university, which serves more than 32,000 students and holds R1 research status, has positioned itself as Florida’s first quantum university, and through its Center for Quantum Technologies it continues to bring together faculty, students and industry partners to advance quantum research and prepare the workforce for an emerging quantum economy in which security, not just computation, will be the defining challenge.

Subject of Research: Quantum cybersecurity workforce development funded by a NIST grant at Florida Atlantic University

Article Title: FAU receives NIST grant to build South Florida’s quantum cybersecurity workforce

Article References: FAU receives NIST grant to build South Florida’s quantum cybersecurity workforce. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: quantum computing, cybersecurity, NIST, Florida Atlantic University, D-Wave, workforce development, critical infrastructure, post-quantum cryptography, STEM education, South Florida, annealing quantum computer, power systems