State-backed quantum park plan expands with new company, computer
[July 24, 2025]
By Andrew Adams
CHICAGO — Another company is joining the state-backed research and
business facility on Chicago’s South Side.
Colorado-based Infleqtion, will set up shop at the Illinois Quantum and
Microelectronics Park, or IQMP. There, they plan to build a “neutral
atom” quantum computer and expand their Illinois workforce.
That technology is one of several ways to build quantum computing and
it’s the method that Infleqtion and its investors have bet big on. Last
month, the company announced it raised $100 million in Series C funding.
Infleqtion CEO Matthew Kinsella, who displayed one of his company’s
“quantum cores” at a news conference Wednesday, said in a follow up
interview that the technology is already more effective than traditional
methods at sensing time, radio waves and inertia.
“There’s these other products that neutral atoms can build that have
real quantum advantage today, like our optical quantum clocks or our
quantum RF antennas or the ability, ultimately, to navigate without
GPS,” Kinsella said. “That’s truly valuable today.”
The company is set to receive $5.3 million in tax credits from Illinois
as part of its expansion in the state. The tax break is through the
state’s Manufacturing Illinois Chips for Real Opportunity, or MICRO,
program.
PsiQuantum, the first “anchor tenant” at IQMP and a major quantum
technology company, received the first MICRO tax credit last year, the
value of which the state pegs at about $92.1 million.
Diraq, IBM and the U.S. Department of Defense have all also announced
plans in the past year to set up or expand existing facilities in
Chicagoland.
Quantum shore
It’s all part of Gov. JB Pritzker’s plan to make Illinois “a global
capital for quantum computing.”
“We have made an aggressive pitch to this burgeoning industry: Come
build the future right here in the state of Illinois,” Pritzker said
Wednesday.
That pitch has been backed by significant state funding. Last year, the
legislature allocated $500 million for a “quantum campus” development,
which eventually became the IQMP. The PsiQuantum deal alone cost the
state another $200 million, including its MICRO tax credit.
The quantum park, which is set to break ground this year, has attracted
significant attention from the quantum industry.
Kinsella said the U.S. has three main hubs of the quantum industry:
Chicago, Boston and Boulder, Colorado.
“And Chicago is emerging as one of, if not the, lead of those,” Kinsella
said, noting that Pritzker’s vocal support, the state’s financial
backing and the cost of living in Chicago have contributed to that.
The announcement was made at the first “Global Quantum Forum,” a two-day
conference organized by the think tank Chicago Council on Global Affairs
as well as the economic development organizations P33 and Intersect
Illinois.
The event included representatives of dozens of quantum companies, as
well as representatives of labor groups, academic institutions and other
economic development organizations.
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Gov. JB Pritzker speaks to attendees at the Global Quantum Forum in
Chiago. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Andrew Adams)
Intersect Illinois CEO Christy George noted that Chicagoland’s two
national labs and universities have contributed to Chicago’s growing
reputation in the quantum world. She also noted that the University of
Illinois Urbana-Champaign produces “more engineers than CalTech, MIT and
Stanford combined.”
“Our region clearly has the talent, the infrastructure and the resources
to lead the quantum revolution,” Intersect Illinois CEO Christy George
said.
Local reactions
The development of the IQMP has sparked positive and negative reactions
from community leaders in the neighborhoods surrounding the planned
site.
As attendees arrived at the Global Quantum Forum at a venue in downtown
Chicago, a handful of protestors from Chicago’s Southeast Side waited
outside.
“It’s a former brownfield that still needs to be cleaned up and the
community is worried what’s already in it,” Amalia NietoGomez, executive
director of Alliance of the SouthEast told Capitol News Illinois at the
demonstration.
While NietoGomez called for a “community benefits agreement” — a binding
contract to provide certain benefits to a community around a development
— several people involved in the IQMP defended the project’s benefits.
“There have been attempts to do things on that site that have not panned
out,” Pritzker said. “This has hypercharged, supercharged an endeavor to
bring jobs, to bring economic opportunity to the area.”
Chicago Alderman Peter Chico, who represents the area, said that there
has been a “good level” of community involvement in the project so far.
He pointed to several community meetings and meetings with individual
community groups.
Chico also noted that the interest in quantum technology has already
provided benefits to the community. Fermilab recently ended a
10-week-long program that offered lessons in quantum physics and
engineering. Several students, according to Chico, have since started
internships in the “quantum ecosystem.”
“The educational component is most important to me,” Chico said. “That’s
where we got community buy-in. When you talk to parents, that’s where
you see their eyes open up and their ears perk up.”
Capitol News Illinois is
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coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily
by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.
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