Massachusetts 2035 · 03 / 10

Jobs

You will have a meaningful well-paying job

The moonshot

Build the World Capital of Atoms

We will build the world capital of atoms in Massachusetts: biotech and healthcare; robotics, chips, defense, and hardware; energy, fusion, quantum, and frontier technology. Build the labs, factories, supply chains, and careers here. We do hard things here. We are built different.

The opportunity

A picture of 2035

An apprentice in Springfield helps assemble a robot. A technician in Lowell works on a chip. A biomanufacturing team produces a treatment developed down the road. Massachusetts keeps the discovery, the production, and the careers.

What we can build on

The Commonwealth has the ingredients for this economy: hospitals and biotech, engineering universities, robotics and defense companies, precision manufacturing, and Commonwealth Fusion Systems. AI can accelerate the work across all three pillars.

The gap to close

An invention does not automatically become a local factory or a good local job. Expensive housing, uncertain approvals, limited industrial space, and missing workforce pathways can send production and talent elsewhere.

The work starts here.

Top three key initiatives

Biotech and healthcare: discover here, make here, heal here

Turn Massachusetts research into medicines, medical devices, diagnostics, biomanufacturing, and better care. Invite hospital systems, Moderna and other life-sciences companies, community colleges, and smaller suppliers into a workforce and production compact.

Tie support to tangible outcomes: facilities opened, treatments manufactured, clinical capacity added, apprentices hired, and wages paid. Connect the cancer mission to this pillar while preserving a broad healthcare economy that needs technicians, nurses, tradespeople, operators, and scientists.

Robotics, chips, defense, and hardware: bring the factory with the idea

Make Gateway Cities the place to prototype, test, and manufacture robots, semiconductors, sensors, aerospace systems, and defense hardware. Pair industrial sites and reliable power with shared equipment, first-customer opportunities, and supplier development.

Recruit expansion from companies already rooted here, including Draper, MACOM, RTX, and the next generation of hardware founders. Support should be competitive and milestone-based, with training and wage commitments. A local invention should create a local production line and a ladder of careers.

Energy and frontier technology: build what the next century runs on

Build the workforce and supply chains for fusion, advanced energy systems, grid hardware, geothermal, and storage. Invite Commonwealth Fusion Systems and other developers to grow engineering, manufacturing, and future projects in Massachusetts.

Include quantum computing, sensing, and advanced materials as enabling technologies alongside energy. Quantum is not itself a source of electricity; its value belongs in the instruments, computation, and physical systems we can build. Link these opportunities directly to school workshops and paid apprenticeships.

The supporting work

Retrain for a named job and a higher wage

Keep free AI and technical retraining available across all 14 counties. Design each pathway with employers that identify real demand, and publish placement, retention, and earnings. Expand opportunities for adults displaced by automation.

Open shared infrastructure to builders

Give startups, community colleges, and public-university students practical access to compute, prototyping, cleanrooms, and testing facilities. Use an initial 30% startup-and-student compute allocation as a proposal to negotiate, not a claim that capacity is already available.

One front door, including for international talent

Create a single Growth Office for sites, permitting, workforce help, and financing. Help international founders navigate lawful federal immigration pathways with qualified counsel; Massachusetts cannot issue its own visas.

Bring Main Street into the opportunity

Pay students and career changers to help local businesses use AI, modernize operations, and become suppliers to larger companies. Restaurants, trades, care providers, and small manufacturers should share in the productivity gains.

Keep companies and production here

Use competitive co-investment and expansion support with enforceable local-job and facility commitments. Publish subsidy per sustained job, energy costs, permit times, and clawbacks. Coordinate every major growth district with 1/3-price housing and better mobility.

The path to 2035

Proposed milestones. Expand against evidence, delivery, and public value.

2027
Organize around the three pillars
Launch employer compacts for biotech and healthcare; robotics, chips, defense, and hardware; and energy and frontier technology. Identify first industrial sites, supplier gaps, and paid placements for students and adults.
2029
Turn commitments into production
Target at least three new or expanded production lines across the pillars. Pursue 25,000 residents retrained, and test an 80% six-month placement goal against independently reported results.
2031
Build careers across the state
Pursue 100,000 completed AI or technical retraining pathways cumulatively, adjusted to employer demand. Grow an advanced-manufacturing corridor toward 15,000 sustained jobs, with wages, retention, and local hiring reported.
2035
Lead in the world of atoms
Make Massachusetts a place where discoveries become products, factories, and rising real incomes. A welder, a laboratory technician, a nurse, an engineer, and a founder can all build a good life here. Success is measured in careers and purchasing power, not only valuations.

Questions & answers

Does a focus on atoms mean giving up on AI and software?

AI and software are essential tools across the plan. The economic priority is applying them to things Massachusetts can discover, manufacture, and deliver in the physical world. Compute alone is not the jobs strategy; products, care, power, and production are.

Will government just pick expensive losers?

Fund shared infrastructure and award company support competitively against private commitments and measurable milestones. Publish terms and recover money when obligations are breached. Matching private capital reduces neither technical risk nor the need for public scrutiny.

Will these jobs reach people without advanced degrees?

Build technician, operator, care, construction, and skilled-trade routes alongside engineering and research careers. Employers should specify which roles require degrees and which can be entered through paid training. Connect the age-18 education mission to the actual entry requirements of each job.

Show the results.

The public scorecard

These are the measures we would publish to judge progress.

Sustained jobs by pillar and region
Inflation-adjusted earnings
Local production
Apprenticeship conversions
Worker retention
Public subsidy per sustained job