What’s a “quantum job”? Q&A with Illinois’ first chief quantum officer

In this brand-new role at Intersect Illinois, Dr. Chalsani recruits quantum tech companies to come to Illinois to help build an emerging industry.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker and the federal government have both bet big on quantum. This year, the state announced that a multimillion-dollar Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park would be built on the long-vacant U.S. Steel South Works site on Chicago’s Far South Side. Anchored by Silicon Valley-based PsiQuantum and supported by the Defense Department’s bleeding-edge tech research team, DARPA, the campus is Illinois’ most visible effort to date to cement Chicago as the world’s quantum capital

Still, there’s intense international competition in the sector, especially from China, and the stakes are high. Compared to traditional computers, quantum computers are exponentially more efficient at solving especially complex problems. That means that, in addition to applications in materials science and pharmaceutical research, quantum computing could be used to break encryption and harvest once-safe data – including national security secrets.