The chipmaker NVIDIA held its annual conference in Silicon Valley this week. Among the major announcements: it chose Boston to be the site of its first-ever research center for quantum computing, opening later this year.

In theory, a quantum computer could perform calculations vastly more quickly than today’s conventional computers.

Nvidia will open a quantum computing research lab in Boston, where it plans to collaborate with scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, CEO Jensen Huang said on Thursday.