Universities, national laboratories join forces to push Chicago into lead on quantum technology

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is joining forces with the University of Chicago and Illinois's two national laboratories, Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , to make the Chicago area a national leader in quantum technology-a rapidly emerging field with revolutionary potential and growing backing from government and industry. The initiative is a major step in an expanded series of collaborations between UChicago and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign , deepening their connections in the Discovery Partners Institute and the Illinois Innovation Network. The universities will be announcing a range of joint projects, including research partnerships in such areas as materials and computing, as well as civic engagement collaborations that will benefit Chicago's South Side, the Urbana-Champaign community and the state. The civic engagement collaboration will focus on youth entrepreneurship, business diversity, K-12 education and urban labs research. The quantum collaboration, bringing together the intellectual talent, research capabilities and engineering power of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Chicago, Argonne and Fermilab, is based in the Hyde Park 53rd Street innovation district, which is anchored by the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The University of Chicago provides management oversight for Argonne and Fermilab. The combined resources of the four institutions create a powerful hub of more than 100 scientists and engineers-among the world's largest collaborative teams for quantum research.