washington business
Cantwell: I was just looking at these numbers between the University of Washington and Washington State University. We have driven the economy of the state of Washington, really over the last 40 years of prodigious research production that has turned into whole new sectors of the economy in Washington. The ability to continue doing that is in jeopardy at the moment.
Building on the innovation conversation, could you speak to how the universities are positioned to help us think about AI, quantum computing and the opportunities that are in front of us in the state of Washington.
Jones: Let me just focus on quantum computing for a moment. It is very, very clear to me when I talk to people from Microsoft, IBM, everybody in the tech industry will tell you that whatever nation controls and creates the first faulttolerant utility-grade quantum computer is going to dominate everything from health care to medicine to banking. So it’ s a big deal. I’ m a very strong believer in radical partnerships. These grand challenges we face are too big and too grand for any one professor or any one laboratory to solve alone. How do we create a coalition of universities and other entities, federal labs, whatever the case might be, that could come together and leverage their resources?
Cantwell: There are two other areas that are really impactful and powerful for the state of Washington. One is the bio economy. When you think about the role that advanced and novel manufacturing played in the economic growth of this state post-World War II to about the late‘ 70s, the bio economy has the same capacity— and we have all of the parts to have an influence— on traditional manufacturing outcomes, health care outcomes, and global health problems. The other thing is energy. You don’ t really do quantum or AI without vastly more appropriate sources of energy.
Jones: I think you’ re spot on. There’ s more opportunity for us to work on the issues related to bio-processing, creating alternative fuels from bio products. And also there’ s a lot of work that’ s going on around precision fermentation as well to create high-value protein products. Those are all things that we have the capability to do given the fact we have a world-class land grant university and a world-class public university that have to find ways to collaborate and share again our expertise to focus on some of these other grand challenges that we face as a nation.
betsy cantwell at a glance
Dr. Elizabeth“ Betsy” Cantwell is the 12th president of Washington State University. She holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’ s Wharton School; a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley; and a bachelor’ s degree in human behavior from the University of Chicago. She and her husband David Hallikainen, an expert in computer animation and the use of computerenhanced geophysical data, are parents to five adult children. robert j. jones at a glance
Dr. Robert J. Jones is the 34th president of the University of Washington. A Georgia native, Jones is a first-generation college student who earned a bachelor’ s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’ s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia, and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Jones is married to Dr. Lynn Hassan Jones, M. D., a musculoskeletal diagnostic radiologist. Together they have five children. winter 2026 21