Montana’s Headwaters Tech Hub gets $41M grant from feds

The U.S. Department of Commerce and Montana’s U.S. senators announced Tuesday that a technology consortium known as the Headwaters Tech Hub will receive a $41 million grant to help build out jobs within the optical and laser technologies field in four regions of Montana.

Last October, the White House announced the Headwaters Tech Hub, led by Accelerate Montana, was one of 31 consortiums to be designated a Regional Innovation and Technology Hub and would get $500,000 to help launch a strategy.

The hub will involve photonics, which includes optical and laser technology, autonomy, artificial intelligence and machine learning. The consortium wants to figure out how to use the technology for self-driving vehicles, LiDAR emission tracking, agriculture and wildfire management, according to its proposal.