City Colleges Is Ready to Prepare Chicagoans for the Skills to Access and Succeed in Quantum Careers

On July 25, 2024, City Colleges of Chicago Chancellor Juan Salgado joined Governor J.B. Pritzker, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other civic and education leaders to announce that PsiQuantum will build a quantum computing campus—The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park or IQMP— a multibillion-dollar investment on the Southeast Side of Chicago. This campus will be the nation’s first commercial quantum computer.

The campus is estimated to have a $20 billion economic impact over the next decade and create more than 175,000 jobs for the Chicago area in quantum computing and related fields. City Colleges of Chicago will also work with these partners to build the workforce needed in this emerging sector from system operators and technicians to quantum computer scientists and engineers.

“On behalf of City Colleges’ 66,000 students across seven colleges, I want to thank you, Governor Pritzker, for your vision and your conviction to make Illinois the world’s leader in quantum, and thank you, President Preckwinkle and Mayor Johnson, for making sure that our communities benefit from the abundant economic opportunities generated by quantum – including right here on the South Side,” said Chancellor Juan Salgado, City Colleges of Chicago. “This investment means good jobs with career paths in fast-growing fields. City Colleges stands ready—ready to keep doing what we do best—ready to work with employers to prepare Chicagoans for the skills to access and succeed in quantum careers.”

The new Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park where PsiQuantum is building its first US-based utility-scale quantum computer, will bring together US national labs, universities, City Colleges, CPS, and DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative—in an unprecedented collaboration within the quantum computing space.

This technology is predicted to help begin to solve some of the nations and the world’s challenges, from designing life-saving drugs to energy solutions in the fight against climate change.