Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Wednesday announced an initiative with New York University that would potentially make New York City equity partners in quantum research projects that come out of a new lab at the school.
The administration is making a $30 million investment to build a Quantum Technology Lab at N.Y.U., called QFab. In exchange, the city will receive 15 percent of any proceeds from intellectual property developed in that lab, using tools that the city helped fund.
The deal with N.Y.U. is the first to emerge from Mr. Mamdani’s reimagined Economic Development Corporation, which he said would have the dual goals of stimulating the city’s economy while delivering economic justice to those less advantaged.
For the government to take an equity stake in a partnership with the private sector is rare, but becoming normalized under the Trump administration. A year ago the Commerce Department claimed an option to take an 8 percent stake in Westinghouse, the nuclear power company. In exchange, the department agreed to help with the construction of nuclear reactors, and if Westinghouse’s valuation reaches $30 billion, the government can require it to carry out an initial public offering, with the right to purchase a fifth of the new public company.
It is a model more traditionally associated with leftist governments. Earlier this year, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed the government take a 50 percent stake of the biggest artificial intelligence companies.
In New York, if a product built in the N.Y.U. lab goes public or merges with another company, the city will get part of the payout.
“It’s less a model of the current federal administration than it is a model of a lot of democratic socialist governments across the world that have a strong sense of what the government can do to build public goods that benefit the people,” said Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice Julie Su. “In other countries the idea of taking shares of public investment is much more common. It has never been used at this scale in the city before.”
The 15 percent stake, Ms. Su said, is not a “magic number.” Though the quantum technology industry is expected to be valued in the trillions of dollars, Ms. Su said it was too early to forecast what revenue this deal could bring to the city budget.
The announcement of this deal comes after Mr. Mamdani endured a bumpy few months with his first city budget negotiations, ultimately reaching a $126 billion spending plan that was sidetracked by battles over housing vouchers and police staffing levels.
The quantum technology lab, which will have $284 million in public and private funding, mostly from N.Y.U., is expected to support about 100 companies. The lab is likely to help build nearly 50 companies and then support another 50 start-ups. N.Y.U. is creating 15 new faculty positions to support the lab, which is set to open in 2030. And the city will have board positions in the lab, which it will use to push for the development of technologies focused on sustainability and energy efficiency.
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