Chicago Missed the Tech Boom. Quantum Computing Gives It a Second Chance.

Source: Chicago Missed the Tech Boom. Quantum Computing Gives It a Second Chance. Publisher: The Wall Street Journal | Author: Jeanne Whalen Published: June 23, 2026 | Archived: June 24, 2026

June 23, 2026 1:00 pm ET

CHICAGO—The Lake Michigan docks that once received iron ore for a 20th-century steel mill will accept a new delivery this summer aimed at fueling Chicago’s future: components of a quantum computer.

The site of the former U.S. Steel mill, on a lakeside plot on the city’s South Side, is now a construction zone for a quantum-technology campus that local leaders hope will vault Chicago into the next high-tech era and accelerate Illinois’s economic growth.

The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park will host one of the largest quantum computing sites in the world, with companies aiming to commercialize technology harnessing the unique powers of nature’s smallest particles to process information in new ways.

Quantum computers have the potential to perform certain types of calculations at virtually unimaginable speeds by exploring many possible answers simultaneously, raising hopes that they can solve problems current computers can’t, such as discovering new drugs for intractable diseases or better materials for electric-vehicle batteries. Proponents also want to use quantum sensors to make more-accurate measurements, and quantum communications networks to transmit data more securely. President Trump on Monday signed a pair of executive orders aimed at speeding development of quantum technology.

The Chicago area largely missed the digital revolution that brought prosperity to Silicon Valley, Seattle and other regions. But it has an advantage in this new field of computing owing to its longtime quantum-physics and engineering prowess at the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab. The park is a bet that the city can leapfrog to the next tech era.

“Right now we export a huge number of scientists and engineers to the coasts,” Harley Johnson, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign engineering professor and chief executive officer of the project, said from the construction site this month. The park aims “to create an industry that retains all that talent,” he added.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who first proposed the park and marshaled $500 million in state funding for it, said he is hoping it can help jump-start Illinois’s economic growth, which has lagged behind the nation’s.

“We need to do more than just attract manufacturing and build out agriculture in our state,” Pritzker said in an interview. “We need to be in industries that are growing much faster than that, and now we are.”

The park has been in the works for several years, and construction has moved quickly since a groundbreaking this past fall. Illinois is racing to establish the site as the nation’s quantum flagship, as cities including Boulder, Colo., also vie for prominence.

One nearly complete building will house one of the world’s biggest quantum computers, developed by PsiQuantum, after parts begin arriving this summer. International Business Machines IBM -0.84%decrease; red down pointing triangle plans to install its own quantum computer at the site—one of more than a dozen it runs worldwide—alongside a research team and a consulting business that it said would employ 750 people by 2030.

Construction is planned for two state-funded research buildings where academic and corporate engineers will pursue the algorithms and software needed to make quantum computers function. Startups from France, Colorado and Australia have committed to installing quantum computers and conducting R&D at the park.

There are risks. Quantum computers have crossed important milestones, such as performing certain calculations that traditional supercomputers can’t. But there are technical obstacles to scaling them up and commercializing them. Plenty of technology parks attempting to capitalize on university know-how have failed over the years.

“It’s worth it for the state to take the risk of making a large investment because of what the opportunity could be,” Pritzker said, adding that companies have so far pledged roughly $5 billion of investments in the site.

Backers of the project said it has a leg up in part because the University of Chicago has spent more than a decade building a quantum-tech sector in the region. In 2021, the university established the nation’s first quantum accelerator to support startups, including several in Chicago. It also launched the Chicago Quantum Exchange, which helps train quantum-tech workers and matches academic researchers with companies to try to speed commercialization of the technology.

The neighborhoods around the park desperately need a new economic engine. U.S. Steel and other nearby mills once employed tens of thousands of workers to churn out much of the steel for Chicago’s skyscrapers and the nation’s railroads. The area never recovered from the yearslong downsizing and closing of the mills in the 1980s and 1990s. Crumbling walls of a structure that once stored iron ore are still visible in one corner of the quantum park.

Jorge Perez, the son of a steelworker, grew up in the neighborhood and watched it decline. As a married adult, he continued living in his childhood home until a man was slain a block away in 2013, when his wife insisted that they move a mile south. Perez, 53 years old, still runs a small bakery, Chico’s Oven, a few blocks west of the park. More than once his father urged him to sell it, figuring the neighborhood was beyond repair.

“I told him, I think something is going to happen here, it’s coming,” Perez said. “And it just took 32 years for it to happen.” Hoping for future business, Perez has started churning out “quantum donuts.”

So far, companies have committed to creating about 1,000 permanent jobs at the park, according to Johnson, who estimated that there could be several thousand jobs on-site within five to 10 years. The roles will range from Ph.D.-level scientists to technicians and skilled laborers who can maintain the infrastructure and equipment, Johnson said. Chicago’s community-college system is preparing to start an apprenticeship program to supply students with technical skills to companies at the park.

By early next year, PsiQuantum expects to start running tests to evaluate the performance of its Chicago computer, scaling it up to larger and larger capacity over time. It will likely take till the end of the decade for PsiQuantum to build a big enough machine to use for commercial purposes, said the company’s chief scientific office, Pete Shadbolt.

“A lot of amazing progress is being made, but I think it’s fair to say nobody yet has the real dream machine that they want to make serious revenues,” Shadbolt said of the industry. “That’s all in the future for everybody.”

Appeared in the June 24, 2026, print edition as 'Chicago Eyes Quantum Tech To Catch Up in Digital Sector'.

Jeanne Whalen writes about the U.S. economy from the Chicago bureau. She previously covered healthcare, general news and other topics from the New York, London and Moscow bureaus. Jeanne also spent six years as a business and economics reporter at The Washington Post.