August 5, 2026
Cheyenne, WY – Big Blue Technologies (BBT) co-founder and Chief Technology Officer Dr. Boris Chubukov has been selected to join West Gate, the Lab-Embedded Entrepreneurship Program administered by the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Materials and Manufacturing Technologies Office.
West Gate embeds promising entrepreneurs at NLR’s campus in Golden, Colorado for a two-year runway, pairing them with national lab scientists to de-risk core technologies and prepare them for market. Fellows receive dedicated technical assistance funding redeemable at NLR, along with entrepreneurial training, mentorship, and access to the lab’s research capabilities and industry partners.
As a West Gate innovator, Dr. Chubukov will work alongside NLR researchers to further advance BBT’s aluminothermic reduction (ATR) process for primary magnesium production, drawing on the lab’s expertise to strengthen the technology as BBT moves from pilot-scale demonstration toward commercial deployment.
“This fellowship gives our team direct access to some of the best materials and process engineering minds in the country,” said Boris Chubukov, CTO of BBT. “It’s a strong vote of confidence in both our technology and our team.”
Dr. Chubukov holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder, where BBT’s underlying technology was originally developed. He co-founded BBT to translate that lab-scale research into a commercially viable, domestic source of magnesium metal.