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

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.