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The city is putting tens of millions of dollars into a high-tech bet right on the edge of the Village, and it wants a piece of whatever comes out of it.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Deputy Mayor Julie Su and EDC chief Anthony Shorris announced Wednesday that the city will award $29.2 million to NYU to build a Quantum Fabrication Facility, or QFab, at 770 Broadway, according to the Mayor’s Office. The university is adding $255 million of its own for construction and a decade of operations, bringing the total to roughly $284 million.
The unusual part is the deal structure. In exchange for its money, the city will hold three seats on QFab’s executive advisory board and will receive 15 percent of NYU central administration’s proceeds from intellectual property created with city-funded equipment. Su framed it as a matter of principle: when the public invests early in a technology, it should share in the success.
The 23,000-square-foot lab is expected to open in 2030. It will manufacture and test quantum chips, run training programs that include CUNY certificates, and offer lab access and summer workshops to CUNY and public school students. NYU projects it will incubate nearly 50 companies, support more than 100 and reach 35,000 New Yorkers over its first decade, including more than 5,000 students.
Patch notes the agreement doesn’t require similar terms for future city-funded projects, though Mamdani described it as a model the administration wants to extend across its economic development work.
Local business groups are on board. Jessica Walker, president and CEO of the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce, said New York should be where the next great industries are built, and that she hopes the companies that emerge will stay and hire here. The city’s announcement also cites a projection that quantum technology could generate up to $2.7 trillion in economic value by 2035.
The lab won’t open until 2030.
