(TNS) — John Goodhue, executive director of the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, has high hopes for the quantum computing technology coming to Holyoke.

“If it proves out, it will solve problems that cannot be solved today,” Goodhue said.

Quantum computing, research into agriculture, food preparation and preservation, clean water and cybersecurity are all seen as solutions to one problem the region has found as-yet unsolvable: What can we do to attract a large number of good paying jobs that aren’t susceptible to moving or offshoring?

Quantum computing leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to solve problems faster than traditional computers — calculations for endeavors like cancer research and drug discovery that would take traditional computers so long as to make the calculation impossible.

“More years than in the history of the universe,” Goodhue said. “Which is a really long time.”

In October, Massachusetts became the first state to back a quantum computing project with the Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center. The state and its Boston-based partner, QuEra Computing, plan to build a $16 million quantum computing complex within the Holyoke center over the next two years.

The state added $40 million to boost quantum computing and $30 million for a food science research center at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to an economic development bond billpassed in the waning days of November.

The food science center has been a particular project of the Western Mass Economic Development Council.

“Which I think is kind of a natural one for Western Massachusetts,” said Richard K. Sullivan Jr., president and chief executive officer of the Western Mass Economic Development Council. “Look at the history we’ve had with Big Y, Agri-Mark and Friendly’s.”

Add to that innovators like Holyoke-based Clean Crop Technologies, with an patented electro-chemical process for removing contamination from plants and seeds.

And the bond bill included a boost to cybersecurity education. A $5 million cybersecurity center opened for the fall semester in Union Station in Springfield. It has both classroom and training opportunities but also real-world security operations centers that can help local companies, nonprofits and governments deal with and protect from threats. This spring, Springfield Technical Community College has about 100 students taking cybersecurity courses at the center.

STCC has about 400 enrolled in its cybersecurity program in total.

Bay Path University in Longmeadow has had a cybersecurity program for years now, boasting 64 students: 38 are undergraduate and 26 are graduate.

“Since its grand opening at Springfield’s Union Station in September 2024, the Richard E. Neal Cybersecurity Center of Excellence has become a hub for hands-on training in a state-of-the-art environment,” said Christopher Thuot, vice president of academic affairs at STCC. “With cybersecurity jobs in high demand, the center is playing a crucial role in preparing skilled professionals for this rapidly growing industry. STCC offers associate degree and certificate programs in cybersecurity and other related computer science and engineering technology programs. Graduates of our programs are highly skilled and sought after in a competitive market here in the Pioneer Valley. The center is also currently working on partnerships with agencies across the region to provide training for the purpose of confronting ever-evolving cybersecurity threats.”

The median salary for information security analysts is $112,000, according to STCC.

More than 750,000 cybersecurity positions go unfilled nationally, according to the MassCyberCenter at the MassTech Collaborative. That includes 20,000 open jobs in Massachusetts.

A tax break in the bond bill is designed to nudge along plans for a $2.7 billion data center first proposed back in 2021. The idea is to get major players in the computer world Google or Meta as potential clients potential clients.

Backers at the Westfield project estimate it could have 400 jobs at full build out, which could take decades.

Goodhue said the prospect of waiting decades for initiatives like this to pay off with jobs should give pause but not dissuade people.

“You have to skate to where the puck is going to be,” he said. “If you wait until it’s all good, it’s too late.”

The Massachusetts Green High Performance Computing Center, built in 2010 on the site of an old mill in Holyoke’s historic industrial district, still has just 20 employees, Goodhue said.

“That will grow a little more over this year,” he said. “And it seems like we have at least 20 more employees on site each day from contractors: electricians, installers. All the people working here to build us out.”

But once quantum computing is up and going, researchers will come to Holyoke to make use of it. And innovators based in Boston will seek out Holyoke and other Western Massachusetts cities and towns.

It’s better to do research in Boston, but expensive to manufacture and grow a business there, he said.

It sounds like another of Goodhue’s ways of explaining how quantum computing works.

“Think of the infinite number of states,” he said. “Buried in it are all possible solutions to the problem, and when you do the measurement, you get one.”

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