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Feds, Illinois partner to bring DARPA quantum-testing facility to the Chicago area

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The quantum-computing efforts planned for the Chicago area got a major boost today with the federal government agreeing to invest up to $140 million to do research here.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, plans to create a quantum-testing facility at the quantum-computing campus planned for the Chicago area. The funds will be matched by $140 million from the $500 million quantum investment that Gov. J.B. Pritzker convinced legislators to approve in this year’s budget. […]

The DARPA investment makes up for Illinois losing out to Colorado on being named a federal technology hub for quantum, which included $40.5 million in funding. […]

DARPA plans a “quantum proving ground” on the campus to test quantum-computing devices. The technology is still in its infancy, and companies are only now starting to build prototypes. PsiQuantum, for example, is attempting to build one of the first large-scale quantum machines.

* Sun-Times…

“It’s going to ensure our quantum campus and the development of our quantum industry is secured as a global leader,” Pritzker said in an interview with the Sun-Times. “We’re the only state that put forward a quantum campus and quantum plan. And the federal government stepping up and becoming an important partner, particularly DARPA, is a lot of validation.” […]

Both the U.S. Steel South Works site in the South Chicago neighborhood and a former Texaco refinery in Lockport are being floated as potential sites for the campus. But the governor said no final decisions have been made. The location is being decided in partnership with quantum companies that plan to be part of the campus. Pritzker said he’s also seeking a “large enough space” that has access to quantum resources that already exist in northern Illinois.

Chicago is already home to the Chicago Quantum Exchange, first launched in 2017 with Argonne and Fermi national laboratories, which now has one of the largest teams of quantum researchers in the world.

The quantum campus will feature a cryogenic facility, which is needed for research and development for microelectronics and quantum technologies. It’s expected to generate up to $60 billion in economic impact, according to estimates from the governor’s office. It’s also expected to create thousands of jobs, but the governor framed it as having the potential of creating “tens of thousands and perhaps more, jobs.”

* The money won’t be doled out all at once, Governor JB Pritzker said during today’s news conference…

They’re looking for the right opportunities to be able to advance a company and bring them to the campus and work with them. So, you know, that’ll happen over some period of time. And so we both committed $140 million to that effort, right? So it’s not like someone’s writing a check today for $140 [million], either side. It’s more that as the opportunities arise, we’re sharing in that opportunity as between us up to $140 million each. So we expect in the end, it will be as much as $280 million.

* DARPA Program Manager Joe Altepeter said the goal is to separate hype from reality through testing…

20 years ago, when I was a graduate student at the University of Illinois, I was convinced quantum computers were going to change the world. Five years later, as a professor at Northwestern University, I realized that was going to be really hard, maybe impossible. And for most of the last 15 years I have been DARPA’s designated quantum computing skeptic.

I am the one that they brought in to prove that the algorithm you are hoping is going to change the world isn’t actually useful for anything, or the quantum computer you’re trying to design can’t ever, ever be built.

But in the last few years, something has changed. What began as really tiny DARPA investments grew into a small DARPA program, which grew into a larger DARPA program.

[T]oday, the prospect of building these machines doesn’t seem quite so impossible, and if there is a real path from the scientifically interesting quantum computers of today to critical industrial tools. The United States has to know the stakes are too high for us not to.

posted by Isabel Miller
Tuesday, Jul 16, 24 @ 2:03 pm

Comments

“and a former Texaco refinery in Lockport are being floated as potential sites”

This would be an excellent location to help diversify the economy of the southwestern suburbs. It also would have access to backbone internet connections.

Right now, local officials in the area are falling over themselves to put warehouses everywhere with the promise of ‘creating jobs’, and have seemingly forgotten about attracting other types of large-scale business ventures.

The problem with this approach is warehouse jobs are currently being automated at an astonishingly quick pace. Any promise of jobs brought from warehouses will have long evaporated within the next 10 years. The largest employer currently in nearby Joliet, is Amazon. By a HUGE margin.

Bringing more high-tech jobs to the region would be a huge plus for the long-term prospects of that region, before the jobs decline from warehouse automation fully takes hold. In a perfect world, the quantum jobs brought in by such a campus would ramp up at the same time the warehouse jobs are dwindling away.

Comment by TheInvisibleMan Tuesday, Jul 16, 24 @ 2:41 pm
So how do the DSA folks feel about the Dems of Illinois bringing some of the largest infrast picture of defense contracting here to Chicago? Considering they’ve been trashing Biden and the party for supporting defense contracting.

Comment by Frida’s boss Tuesday, Jul 16, 24 @ 6:37 pm