AB 940 directs the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO‑Biz) to produce industry-specific strategies for the strategic sectors listed in the California Jobs First State Economic Blueprint. The law requires each strategy to assess the industry’s current state, identify dependencies and risks, propose projects and public‑private partnership models, review relevant state policies and regulations, and post sector information on a dedicated state website.
The bill singles out quantum technology: GO‑Biz must prioritize a quantum technology industry strategy, develop it with regional stakeholders, and deliver the completed plan to the Legislature no later than July 1, 2026. The statute also explicitly directs strategies to leverage California’s academic and technological assets and to prioritize access to tax incentives, grants, loan programs, and workforce training to catalyze private investment.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill requires GO‑Biz to develop industry strategies for the strategic sectors named in the California Jobs First blueprint and to include detailed elements such as an industry overview, risk assessment, project identification, policy analysis, outcome projections, and a public web presence.
Who It Affects
This statute directly affects GO‑Biz operations, state economic and workforce programs, academic research institutions, regional economic collaboratives that identified strategic sectors, and private investors seeking state incentives tied to sector growth.
Why It Matters
By converting the Jobs First blueprint into actionable sector playbooks and tying strategies to incentives and workforce programs, the law creates a mechanism for targeted economic development and shapes where state resources and outreach will focus — with quantum technology receiving an accelerated timeline.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 940 transforms the California Jobs First State Economic Blueprint from a high‑level plan into a set of operational industry strategies produced by GO‑Biz. Rather than leaving the blueprint as descriptive guidance, the law requires a practical, industry-by-industry articulation of what the state will do to grow jobs and capital investment: a written industry overview, a list of near‑term projects and partnership types, an inventory of regulatory opportunities, and measurable sector outcomes.
Each strategy must also be made available on a dedicated section of the State of California website so stakeholders can access up‑to‑date, industry‑specific information.
The statute emphasizes leveraging California’s concentrated academic and technological strengths and requires GO‑Biz to prioritize mechanisms that spur private investment — for example, identifying which tax incentives, grants, loan programs, or workforce training initiatives could be used to accelerate industry growth. GO‑Biz must also identify dependencies and risks, which means the strategies are intended to be candid about supply‑chain gaps, regulatory chokepoints, or talent shortages that could block growth.Quantum technology receives special treatment.
The law compels GO‑Biz to prioritize and complete an industry strategy for the quantum subsector by July 1, 2026, and to prepare that strategy in partnership with stakeholders from the regions that listed quantum as a priority. GO‑Biz may, but is not required to, prepare strategies for other subsectors named in the blueprint.
The statute also requires the quantum strategy submission to comply with the state’s legislative report format rules (Section 9795).
The Five Things You Need to Know
The bill adds Article 6.3 (Section 12099.8) to the Government Code, creating a statutory duty for GO‑Biz to craft industry strategies for sectors listed in the California Jobs First blueprint.
Each industry strategy must include six elements: an industry overview, risk/dependencies, prioritized projects and partnership models, policy/regulatory analysis, expected sector outcomes, and a dedicated webpage.
GO‑Biz must prioritize and submit a quantum technology industry strategy to the Legislature by July 1, 2026, prepared with input from regions that identified quantum as a priority.
The statute explicitly instructs strategies to prioritize access to tax incentives, grants, loan programs, and workforce training as tools to catalyze private investment.
The law authorizes GO‑Biz to develop strategies for other blueprint subsectors but stops short of mandating timelines for those additional strategies.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Legislative findings and rationale
This section explains why the Legislature wants industry strategies: to translate the Jobs First Blueprint into action, highlight California’s technological and academic strengths, and focus on sectors—including high‑tech and quantum—that regional collaboratives identified as priorities. It frames quantum as a strategically important subsector and sets the political and economic rationale for a prioritized response.
GO‑Biz duty to develop industry strategies
Subsection (a) imposes the affirmative duty on the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development to produce industry strategies for the strategic sectors listed in the Jobs First blueprint. Practically, this creates a work program and deliverable expectation within GO‑Biz, requiring the office to move from planning to written strategies that identify concrete activities and investments for sector growth.
Strategic frame: leverage California assets and tools
Subsection (b) directs GO‑Biz to base strategies on California’s comparative advantages—its research institutions, skilled workforce, and tech ecosystem—and to prioritize policy tools such as tax incentives, grants, loan programs, and workforce training. That language signals that strategies should not only diagnose problems but recommend deployable financial and programmatic levers to attract private capital.
Required content for each industry strategy
Subsection (c) enumerates the six required components of every strategy: (1) industry overview, (2) dependency and risk identification, (3) prioritized projects and public‑private partnership types, (4) state policy and regulatory analysis, (5) outcome summaries, and (6) a dedicated web presence. These prescribed elements standardize the deliverable and allow legislators and stakeholders to compare strategies across sectors.
Quantum prioritization, stakeholder engagement, and reporting
Subsection (d) singles out quantum technology: GO‑Biz must develop a quantum industry strategy, prioritize it above other subsectors, engage regional stakeholders who identified quantum as a priority, and submit the completed strategy to the Legislature by July 1, 2026 in compliance with Section 9795. The subsection also preserves discretionary authority for GO‑Biz to produce strategies for other blueprint subsectors without imposing the same deadline.
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Who Benefits
- Quantum technology companies and startups — They receive a focused state strategy, potential access to prioritized incentives and workforce programs, and a clearer pathway to public‑private partnerships that can accelerate commercialization.
- Research universities and national labs — The bill formalizes a role for academic assets in state economic strategy and creates opportunities to align grants, workforce pipelines, and industry collaborations around specific sector priorities like quantum.
- Regional economic collaboratives that identified sectors in the Jobs First blueprint — Those collaboratives gain a state‑level playbook that can translate regional priorities into state investments and policy attention, improving prospects for project funding and partnership development.
Who Bears the Cost
- GO‑Biz and state program administrators — GO‑Biz must allocate staff time and resources to produce the strategies, maintain the dedicated web pages, and coordinate stakeholder engagement; other agencies may need to support analysis without dedicated new funding.
- California taxpayers and budget decisionmakers — If the strategies lead to expanded tax incentives, grants, or loan programs, the state will face fiscal trade‑offs between subsidizing sector growth and other budget priorities.
- Smaller or non‑priority industries and regions — By directing attention and potential incentives to selected sectors and regions (notably quantum), the statute risks shifting limited state support away from other industries and communities that do not appear on the blueprint’s strategic list.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is whether the state should actively pick and accelerate specific high‑potential sectors to capture future economic value (reducing uncertainty for investors and concentrating limited public resources) versus remaining neutral and letting market signals allocate investment (avoiding selection errors, regional favoritism, and fiscal risk). The law seeks to resolve this by mandating strategies and incentives but leaves the fiscal, evaluative, and governance details open — trading decisiveness for ambiguity about who pays, who benefits, and how success is measured.
The statute converts a planning document into an operational agenda, but it leaves key implementation choices unresolved. Most importantly, AB 940 instructs GO‑Biz to “prioritize access” to incentives and programs without specifying funding levels, eligibility criteria, or a process for approving incentives.
That gap means the strategies could be detailed roadmaps that nonetheless lack teeth unless the Legislature or the Administration commits budgetary resources and specific program rules.
The required content list imposes standardization, which aids comparability, but it also risks producing check‑the‑box documents if GO‑Biz lacks staff, data, or interagency cooperation. The law requires stakeholder engagement for quantum strategy, but it does not define minimum outreach standards, conflict‑of‑interest safeguards for public‑private partnerships, or how proprietary industry information will be handled on public webpages.
Finally, prioritizing quantum on an accelerated timeline creates opportunity‑cost questions: advancing one subsector quickly may capture investment, but it raises selection risk (choosing winners) and may amplify regional disparities. Measuring success is also an unresolved issue — the statute asks for expected sector‑level outcomes but does not set performance metrics, timelines for those outcomes, or requirements for follow‑up evaluation.
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