Florida Atlantic University lands a $200,000 NIST grant to train a quantum-ready cyber workforce for the South Florida grid

Florida Atlantic University has landed a $200,000 award from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to build a quantum-ready cybersecurity workforce across five South Florida counties, with a 4,400+ qubit D-Wave quantum computer on its Boca Raton campus serving as a training tool.

The cooperative agreement runs through NIST's Regional Alliances and Multistakeholder Partnerships to Stimulate (RAMPS) program, one of nine awards handed out across eight states. FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science and the Florida Power & Light Center for Intelligent Energy Technologies (InETech) lead the program, titled "Building the Quantum Cybersecurity Workforce in the Palm Beach and Treasure Coast Region."

The training loop pulls together K-12 students from Palm Beach and Broward County public schools, community college learners, Florida Power & Light utility workers, and InfraGard South Florida members. InfraGard is an FBI-affiliated public-private partnership for infrastructure protection. The curriculum will align with NIST's NICE Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity, the U.S. standard taxonomy for cyber roles.

D-Wave's Advantage2 annealing system is a specialized quantum computer built for optimization problems, not a general-purpose replacement for existing cyber defenses. Hosted on campus, it gives regional trainees direct access to commercial quantum hardware.

The program targets power grid systems, smart space infrastructure, and defense networks. The five-county footprint covers Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, St. Lucie, and Indian River.