Quantum Shore Chicago is set to completely transform the lakefront where I used to call home. If you grew up in or near Chicago, you know the city was once the site of many steel mills. Now, it is being reimagined with a greater focus on technological innovation, namely quantum.
Once the site of steel mills that built this nation’s bridges and skyscrapers, today the area of Chicago is being reimagined to forge new ideas and industries that will shape the forefront of technology for decades to come.
The former U.S. Steel South Works site at 8080 S. DuSable Lake Shore Drive in the South Chicago neighborhood is located roughly 12 miles from downtown Chicago, 14 miles from Midway Intl. Airport, 14 miles from Chicago Union Station, 33 miles from Argonne National Laboratory, 33 miles for O’Hare Intl. Airport, and 52 miles from Fermilab.
The first phase of the project launches the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park, which is a 128-acre innovation campus anchored by PsiQuantum, and joined by IBM, and Australian quantum startup Diraq.
PsiQuantum, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, aims to build and deploy America’s first million-qubit scale, fault-tolerant quantum computer.
The Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park campus is being developed through a public-private partnership with the state of Illinois, and it marks the initial phase of a larger 440-acre master plan on the former U.S. Steel South Works site.
The groundbreaking of the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park took place last September and included more than 500 guests, including Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other city and state officials, project partners, labor leaders, and more.
The campus is built for quantum technology and microelectronics innovation, and it will be a destination to bring together companies, researchers, manufacturers, suppliers, end users, and other partners who are working to develop and commercialize the technologies.
Real estate companies Related Midwest and CRG are receiving financing from funds managed by Blue Owl Capital on both the land acquisition and vertical development of facilities. The first phase of the Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park is designed by Lamar Johnson Collaborative. Clayco will serve as general contractor for the initial phase.
In the future, Quantum Shore will also have a state-of-the-art hospital. Advocate Health Care will invest $300 million in the facility to identify new opportunities for innovation in science, health, and technology.
Quantum computing has the potential to completely transform the way we solve problems in energy, medicine, manufacturing, construction, financial services, and more. This project is just the beginning of where we are headed with quantum in the years ahead.
If you want to learn a bit more about the nitty gritty details of quantum computing and its relationship to AI (artificial intelligence), then head over to my Connected World blog tomorrow. Quantum is set to reshape the future of work, and I am going to spend some time this month unpacking the long-term impact of quantum. This project is really just the beginning. Stay tuned.
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