In a large, open space on the first floor of 750 Main St. in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a carbon-capture company is heating up molten salts to 600°C right next to a quantum computing company’s device for supercooling qubits. The difference is about 900° across 15 feet.

It doesn’t take long during a tour of The Engine Accelerator to realize this isn’t your typical co-working space. Companies here are working at the extremes to develop new technologies with world-changing impact—what The Engine Accelerator’s leaders call “tough tech.”

Comprising four floors and 150,000 sq ft next door to MIT’s campus, the new space offers startups specialized lab equipment, advanced machining, fabrication facilities, office space, and a range of startup support services.

The goal is to give young companies that merge science and engineering all the resources they need to move ideas from the lab bench to their own mass manufacturing lines.

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