Ohio, Wisconsin, Indiana and Oklahoma bested Baltimore in a competition this month for federal dollars to build a tech hub.

The loss was disappointing and surprising for the partners of the Greater Baltimore Tech Hub Consortium, who applied for a $70 million grant after winning a designation last year as a federal tech hub.

It especially stung for Greater Baltimore Committee CEO Mark Anthony Thomas, who introduced President Joe Biden at last year’s White House event kicking off the federal funding competition.

But Thomas and other leaders in the region’s tech consortium say they intend to stay focused on other ways to secure millions of dollars for Baltimore’s developing biomedical and artificial intelligence industry.

And Kory Bailey, CEO of UpSurge Baltimore and member of the consortium, said Baltimore has more chances to win federal money. “The next rounds will be exponentially larger and have a much bigger impact on the hubs that receive it,” he said.

The consortium’s proposal includes investing in early-stage entrepreneurs, creating a biotech jobs initiative, opening a regional innovation office and launching a biomanufacturing project to address weaknesses in national security.

Major players in the consortium are looking on the bright side. There is uncertainty about next steps, but they say they want to use this time to build out their vision and come back stronger for the next phase of federal funding.

The U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Regional Technology and Innovation Hubs program expands upon the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act with $10 billion over five years earmarked for tech hubs interested in growing local and national economic development and opportunity.

The Biden administration received 379 applications from communities in 49 states seeking the prestigious designation. Baltimore was one of the 31 to win the designation.

In the second phase of the program, however, Baltimore wasn’t one of the 12 regions selected to receive a total of $504 million in funding. The government capped its awards at $51 million per region, though Baltimore had sought $70 million.

“While we are disappointed that the Baltimore Region’s proposal was not funded in this round, we will receive a $500,000 federal grant to support our reapplication in the next round,” Thomas said in a statement after the winners were announced.

The Greater Baltimore Committee convened 38 partners in the region and got buy-in from several universities, local businesses and organizations, cities and counties to create the consortium. They worked together on an application to convince the Economic Development Administration that this was Baltimore’s “moment.”

Thomas said the consortium has not received feedback on why they weren’t chosen, or what could be done better in the next phase. Focus areas, however, could have been a contributing factor.

In the group’s application, it committed to making Baltimore the country’s first “equitech” region, describing it as a “top tech destination that is inclusive — a place where we re-imagine the biotechnology, AI/ML, and healthcare landscape.”

Most of the 12 winning hubs were in focus areas such as quantum, autonomous and energy technologies; supply chain; semiconductor manufacturing; and biomanufacturing — suggesting that’s what interested the federal government the most.

Baltimore’s application was in the “delivering precise and predictive medicine” category, along with four other regional tech hubs. Only the Wisconsin Biohealth Tech Hub was selected from that category, and it received $49 million.

“The focus had to be consistent with national security interests, so we selected AI and biotechnology,” Thomas said. “But that doesn’t mean that any investments or federal dollars that flow into the region have to be limited to that area.”

Tech Hubs in Chicago, Kansas City, Birmingham and Philadelphia also were not among the federal funding winners. Thomas and others believe the administration wanted to select more rural areas, which weren’t as advanced in the tech space as Baltimore and other cities.

“We have the intention of being a leader in equitech and elevating a post-industrial city that has had equity issues,” Thomas said. “The themes across the 12 selected were the focus. We would have been an outlier among them.”

The Economic Development Administration has not announced when another round of competitive funding will become available, but Thomas said the White House and the department have requested $4 billion in funding for it.

Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, a nonprofit, nonpartisan policy and governance research organization, believes Baltimore has a good strategy that makes the region appealing for other funding opportunities.

“No one should discount the importance of the designation, nor think that the bid around the Baltimore tech hub concept is over,” Muro said. “The designation gives the region a real opportunity right away because they now have on the table one of the stronger initiatives in the country to develop predictive healthcare technologies and clinical decision-making.”

LaToya Staten, executive director of the Technology Growth Initiative powered by Fearless, a Baltimore-based government digital services company and a consortium member, said this is the time to refine the strategy.

She said her company intends to continue incubating founders through its Hutch program, which focuses on underrepresented entrepreneurs — all through the lens of AI.

The view of UpSurge Baltimore is that the grant application, though it failed, created partnerships outside of Baltimore that they plan to tap into.

“We’re really trying to put the conditions in place for the region to see better jobs or accessible industries and create attractive opportunities for people to stay and grow businesses in the city and region,” Thomas said. “Those kinds of decisions will take decades of smart strategy, but that’s why we’re committed to this.”