Rendering of PsiQuantum’s facility at the former South Works site, which will house the nation’s first large-scale quantum computer.
psychoquantum
The question of what to do with the old U. S. The empty Steel South Works has been a 500-acre algae around the city’s neck for more than 30 years.
Located across the lake on 79th Street, the site seemed to have every prospect of progress in the world. But years of efforts to turn this once-industrial domain into an exciting new coastal community have come and gone, even after the city spent millions to expand. U. S. 41 across the site and build a 70-acre 566 park and a 16-acre Steelworkers park.
But now it looks like the South (Works) will expand again thanks to a new plan announced last week by Gov. J. B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson with the goal of building a quantum computer study and production campus on the site.
Pritzker said the campus would be a “world leader” in the quantum computing industry. And Johnson said the task “will change lives just in this domain of the city, the city of Chicago as a whole, but also the global economy around technology. ” “.
Quantum computing uses large, complicated computers that can resolve disorders faster and better than traditional computers, which use binary sequences.
Experts say these new computers can better handle the kind of complex calculations needed to create innovative drugs.
PsiQuantum, of Palo Alto, California, will be the campus’ anchor tenant. Once the company is established there, PsiQuantum will work to build the country’s first commercial quantum computer.
Earlier this month, Pritzker announced a partnership between the state and the U. S. Department of Defense’s progression company. A U. S. government has been working to expand quantum technology in Illinois.
As a component of the alliance, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, would enroll in PsiQuantum on campus and lead a program testing quantum computing prototypes.
“We are the only state that has proposed a quantum campus and a quantum plan,” Pritzker said. “And the fact that the federal government is stepping up and looking for a partner, namely DARPA, is a huge validation. “
But none of this is cheap. Pritzker’s 2025 budget sets $500 million for quantum research, of which $300 million will go toward the creation of the South Works campus.
Meanwhile, Johnson’s $1. 25 billion investment of economic progression factor and housing bonds will go toward the campus project.
And there’s also a movement underway to get the county to make eligible for Class 8 asset tax incentives, aimed at encouraging advertising and advertising progression in economically disadvantaged spaces, which would reduce the tax assessment of campus advertising assets by 25 percent for advertising properties. at 10% for 10 years.
PsiQuantum would get $500 million in city, state and county incentives over a 30-year period.
The City Council says all those public investments will have an economic effect of $20 billion over the next decade and create more than 175,000 jobs in the quantum computing sector.
We are skeptical of the economic progression projections, which tend to be more positive than the Garfield Park Conservatory propagation houses.
But if South Works is to be redeveloped, public investment will be needed to achieve it.
Chicago’s South End, especially the subset known as “The Bush,” which was situated near the former metal mill, can benefit from an upgrade like the Quantum Campus.
Historical dominance depended on U. S. Steel and other generators to sustain itself for much of the 20th century and suffered greatly when the industry suddenly disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s.
We would like citizens and voices on social media to have a seat at the table as the plans expand and, more importantly, a percentage of the jobs that will come out of this project.
Judging by the renderings, the site’s two public parks will remain, and that’s fine, too.
Time will tell if all this comes to fruition. But for now, the quantum campus allocation seems like precisely the kind of transformative, large-scale, and potentially job-creating effort that neighborhoods like Chicago’s South Side and the city itself need.
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