{"id":616743,"date":"2026-02-26T04:56:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/616743\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:56:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:56:24","slug":"the-rising-stakes-of-illinois-quantum-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/616743\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rising Stakes Of Illinois’ Quantum Push"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park<\/a>\u00a0project is coming into sharper focus as its stakeholders position the landmark\u00a0development to compete on the world stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nearly a year and a half after the South Chicago project was first announced<\/a>, Related Midwest<\/a> and CRG have broken ground and lured several tenants working to develop utility-scale quantum computers to the park.<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n A rendering of Illinois’ new quantum campus with PsiQuantum as an anchor tenant\n <\/p>\n

Hundreds of millions in state investment and the diverse tenant ecosystem have those involved optimistic that IQMP can compete as a worldwide leader in quantum tech, panelists said at Bisnow\u2019s Innovation in Chicago Life Sciences<\/a>, Quantum Computing and Biotech Summit on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a global competition,\u201d said Harley Johnson, director and CEO of the IQMP, at the event held at Hyde Park Labs. \u201cOur hope and our expectation is that a lot of the international organizations would like to have a footprint in the U.S. We want them to do it here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson pointed to Europe, Australia and Canada as places well-positioned to compete to become global quantum leaders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

State lawmakers carved out $500M to support the park\u2019s development when it launched in 2024 alongside anchor tenant PsiQuantum<\/a>. Some of the leaders in the space have inked deals at the 128-acre former U.S. Steel South Works site since then, including Pasqal, IBM and Diraq. Pascal is based in Paris, and Diraq is based in Sydney.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Johnson said the park’s focus is to bring a diverse mix of the best companies into the project. He said they are hopeful that more than one of these technologies will emerge over the next few years as they succeed in various aspects of quantum computing,\u00a0which has yet to be proven at this scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are four companies that have different technologies for quantum computing, and it’s really four of the big five,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe’re really spanning the technology spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chicago Quantum Exchange CEO Kate Timmerman said capital needs for deep tech and emerging startups are met not only locally but also through global partners. A huge component in securing that money is being in the places where those financing sources are located.<\/p>\n

Timmerman said both the University of Chicago<\/a> and Northwestern University<\/a> are preparing to open offices in San Francisco so Midwest startups can meet with capital providers there.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really have to be out there and constantly be pushing forward to, you know, make sure they are aware of what’s going on and not have them just fly in for a day,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Placeholder\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Bisnow\/Will Follett\n <\/p>\n

\n Clayco\u2019s Michael Fassnacht, Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park\u2019s Harley Johnson, PsiQuantum\u2019s Aaron Fluitt and P33\u2019s Brad Henderson\n <\/p>\n

Illinois leads the country in federal funding for quantum technology, with 27 contracts totaling about $51M, according to a Newmark report on the city\u2019s quantum sector<\/a>. The funding amount is slightly higher than California at $50M, and well ahead of the other states in the top five, with New Jersey at about $13M, Massachusetts at roughly $10M and New Mexico at $6M.\u00a0<\/p>\n

P33 CEO Brad Henderson said the current phase of building is akin to early bets on what will be here in five or six years, which he thinks will be a massive global industry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is for all those components of the supply chain and the software, now is the time to build,\u201d Henderson said. \u201cChicago and Illinois have a chance at all of that if we work together, and that could be transformational for the place that we live.\u201d<\/p>\n

IQMP anchor tenant PsiQuantum closed on a $1B funding round<\/a> in September that Aaron Fluitt, the company\u2019s senior director of technology partnerships, said will enable it to\u00a0construct larger-scale prototypes and build out cooling technologies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The money will also enable PsiQuantum to continue engaging externally with the companies and industries that stand to benefit from quantum computing over the next few years, Fluitt said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis capital helps us kind of give us that runway to scale up that technology out toward utility scale,\u201d he said. \u201cThat will help us build our intermediate scale machine here in Chicago in a few years, which will occupy the building that’s under construction now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fluitt said the company will need a \u201cbroad and balanced\u201d workforce, including systems engineers, business teams to showcase the value to potential customers, and people to run cryogenic systems.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In Chicago, there are already almost 12,000 employees in quantum-related jobs, including engineers and data scientists, according to Newmark<\/a>. The number of employees in these fields in the city is projected to grow 7% by 2027.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the next three to five years, Fluitt wants to deliver on the commitment to build a utility-scale quantum computer in the city. Still, the machine is only useful\u00a0if the community is ready to\u00a0utilize\u00a0it for business purposes and scientific research, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fluitt said there\u2019s a tremendous quantum science community in the area and a history of computing projects and ambitious scientific facilities at universities and national laboratories. Critically, he said there\u2019s also a really diverse set of industries that stand to benefit from quantum computation,\u00a0including finance, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and energy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in first mover advantage, and I think Illinois has that right now,\u201d Fluitt said. \u201cWe have to keep moving fast to keep it, but I’m really encouraged by where we are here in Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The\u00a0Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park\u00a0project is coming into sharper focus as its stakeholders position the landmark\u00a0development to compete…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":616744,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[264342,264340,960,236591,107992,41269,264344,264341,5386,1818,178380,264343,264345,139224,132557],"class_list":["post-616743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-aaron-fluitt","tag-brad-henderson","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-quantum-exchange","tag-crg","tag-diraq","tag-harley-johnson","tag-hyde-park-labs","tag-il","tag-illinois","tag-illinois-quantum-and-microelectronics-park","tag-kate-timmerman","tag-p33","tag-psiquantum","tag-related-midwest"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116135158467501957","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=616743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/616743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/616744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=616743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=616743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=616743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}