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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The $4 million GO Virginia grant awarded to the National Innovation Quarter last month will include an $800,000 innovation lab located in Alexandria's Potomac Yard neighborhood, the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership confirmed Monday.
The lab — described in grant materials as a secure facility for emerging technology collaboration and prototyping — will be developed in partnership with Virginia Tech, Inova, the City of Alexandria, National IQ and Arlington. A specific address has not been announced, but AEDP confirmed it will be in Potomac Yard, where Virginia Tech's Innovation Campus anchors Alexandria's stake in the bi-jurisdictional district.
The Alexandria Brief reported the GO Virginia award on June 26, when Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced the grant — the largest single award in a $5.6 million statewide round. At the time, the full breakdown of how the funds would be deployed across the district had not been detailed.
Marian Marquez, AEDP's senior vice president, said the lab gives Alexandria a physical presence within the grant's vision.
"This GO Virginia investment turns the promise of National IQ into the infrastructure, programming and partnerships companies need to build, test and scale in Northern Virginia," Marquez said. "For Alexandria, it directly advances the City's focus on innovation by pairing Virginia Tech's presence with an innovation lab where entrepreneurs, industry and government partners can move emerging technologies from concept to commercialization."
AEDP is framing Alexandria's role in the broader National IQ investment as the region's build-and-test site — pointing to the city's existing industrial stock and co-working and co-warehousing spaces, its recent recognition by Business Facilities magazine as a top innovation hub to watch, and the lab's connection to goals laid out in ALX Forward, the city's economic development strategic plan.
The inclusion of Inova, the Northern Virginia health system, as a lab partner is notable and suggests a life sciences or health technology component alongside the defense-tech and dual-use focus that has defined National IQ since its February launch.
The $4 million grant — administered by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development — will support National IQ over two years across four areas: building the nonprofit's operational capacity, creating the Innovation Lab, advancing workforce development through the National Security Innovation Capstone Initiative with Virginia Tech, and delivering four accelerator and startup programs.
The award is paired with nearly $2 million in matching funds from local governments, universities, corporations and ecosystem partners, bringing the total investment behind National IQ's next phase to roughly $6 million.
National IQ, which spans Arlington and Alexandria, was established to translate the region's concentration of technical talent, federal expertise and research capacity into startups and commercialized technologies. In April 2026, it co-located with Silicon Valley Defense Group, VC in DC and Virtus Innovation Center at a roughly 15,000-square-foot hub at 1550 Crystal Drive in National Landing.
Ryan Belmore
Ryan Belmore
