The State of California issues a Request for Proposals for the California Institutes for Science and Innovation to create “world-class centers for scientific discovery that fuels innovation, and for education integrated into the cutting-edge research that will train future scientists and technological leaders.” In November, three winning centers are announced, including CALIT2. (The next year, a fourth center is added.) The centers receive approximately $100 million each in startup investments from the State, on the condition they raise at least twice as much from other sources.

UC Irvine debuts its state-of-the-art CALIT2 facility. The 120,000-square-foot, four-story research building contains a 3,700-square-foot clean room for micro- and nano-fabrication and materials characterization, as well as a separate bioMEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) clean room for research on biomedical micro-devices. Other features include a large-scale visualization laboratory, a network laboratory, and labs for optical devices, nanotechnology measurement and media arts. Later, the building adds a Bio-Organic Nanotechnology clean room (2007), Laboratory for Electron and X-ray Instrumentation (2012), student and smart-technology makerspaces (2015), and Data Engineering ThinkTank (2019).

Atkinson Hall, named in honor of former UC President Richard C. Atkinson, opens on the UC San Diego campus as the headquarters of both CALIT2 and its San Diego division. The 215,000-square-foot building, which would win several awards for its design, includes clean rooms for nanofabrication, digital theaters for new media arts and scientific visualization, test and measurement labs for circuit design, smart spaces for experiments in augmented reality, and testbeds for wireless and optical communications. The building continues to evolve over the years with new facilities including art exhibition space Gallery QI (2008), a series of large-display visualization technology installations, and the Magnetoencephalography Center (2023).

CALIT2, UC San Diego division, changes its name to “Qualcomm Institute” in recognition of support from Qualcomm, Inc. and its affiliated Qualcomm Foundation; by that time their gifts to CALIT2 totaled almost $26 million.

UC Office of the President announces the expansion of CALIT2 to include UC Riverside as a third campus partner in the multidisciplinary coalition, joining founding members UC Irvine and UC San Diego and opening new opportunities for collaboration.