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Chicago Bets on Quantum Tech as 'Next Big Thing' for Its Future (bloomberg.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
Chicago is betting on quantum -- a technology that could ensure everything from emails to online shopping is 100% secure -- to fuel future economic growth. But there's still much work to do before the city realizes its dream of becoming the nation's capital for the promising technology. From a report: Best known for traditional industries including food, agriculture and manufacturing, the Windy City has been trying to lure investments from companies such as Google and Amazon.com as it shifts its focus to quantum, which promises to make Internet communication unhackable.

Illinois already gets 40% of all the federal dollars for the technology and has four of the nation's 10 quantum centers, the most of any state. But being at the forefront of quantum developments requires the city to focus on translating science into companies and jobs, said Brad Henderson, chief executive officer at P33, a non-profit founded by former Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. "We have a top five science setting and we're not even in the top 10 at translating science into commerce," he said. "We're targeting tens of billions of dollars in annual GDP that we expect to have in 10 years. That's our goal. And tens of billion dollars actually translates into thousands of jobs."
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Chicago Bets on Quantum Tech as 'Next Big Thing' for Its Future More

Chicago Bets on Quantum Tech as 'Next Big Thing' for Its Future

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  • Are they, though? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday October 28, 2022 @10:03AM (#63005653) Homepage Journal

    Betting on any one thing is stupid unless you can afford to lose.

    Are they really betting the future of the town on "Quantum" (ugh) or is this just more hyperbolic bullshit? Or maybe it's both at once ;)

    • Its one of those separatist, free, constitutional, rebel, leader, states that does things their own way, Chicago mind you and not the actual state of Illinois ....

    • Re:Are they, though? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday October 28, 2022 @10:32AM (#63005761)
      With remote work being suddenly so big it's not even clear to me that a city can still "win" by becoming a hub for a certain technology. Sure, quantum has a hardware aspect that will have to be in the lab, but if it does become a thing I'd bet the majority of related jobs will be developing the supporting software, management, etc.

      • That's a good point. If you want to expand your tax base, the best bet is just to make your locality a nicer place in general, and make it not just possible but convenient to move there. But you do have to pay for it...

    • Quantum can make everything 100% secure. At the same time, quantum will make everything 100% insecure. We won't know which of those two true statements is correct until we open the box. Or close it. Actually we won't know to open or close the box either until we ask the cat, who will tell us it's both if it could talk. The cat appears calm though so maybe just relax.

  • They're shooting for tech jobs, with thousands of workers... but no active training of the thousands of residents that will be needed for those jobs. So they're planning on keeping people moving in to the suburbs and commuting to jobs around the edges of Chicago.

    Why advertise things that your people aren't trained to do? Chicago's educational system needs upgrades first, or you're just making jobs for suburbanites, which doesn't help the city.

    • Re:Chicago has a problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RogueWarrior65 ( 678876 ) on Friday October 28, 2022 @10:40AM (#63005787)

      Not just Chicago. The entire state has a problem. No business in their right mind would relocate there and a startup will leave just before they go public.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )
        This is NOT a state education problem, although all states have education problems. This is a "nobody wants to move to Illinois" problem. The reason why you don't have this problem in some of the other attractant states like CA and TX is not because their education is superior to Illinois' education, but because people would actually consider moving there. Illinois is fiscally ranked in the bottom 3-4 states in the U.S., and it's all flat for 6 hours in any direction. The only interesting thing about Il

        • Chicago has lot's of fresh water other places not so much.

          • Ya, that's good. On the other hand it's frigging cold! Maybe we get a big pipeline between California and Illinois - we ship warm air your way and you ship water our way.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by lsllll ( 830002 )
            I like 60 miles outside Chicago and I have fresh water via a well. Most places in the U.S. don't have a fresh water problem, either. California has a fresh water problem because it's a fricking desert with 40 million people. That's like complaining that Algeria has a fresh water problem. Texas has 1.7 times the area of California and 3/4 of the people, so it doesn't have water issues to the California extent.
  • I just want to seriously ask: is this shit even real? Have they solved n-complete problems generically or searched the entire keyspace of a crypto algo instantly, yet? I'm not asking to be trite, I really have trouble sifting through this hype. Can someone in the know drop some knowledge on me? Is Quantum tech really what they claim or is it a scam? I can't seem to cut the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter. Google has not been my friend because I don't know who to trust. Too much VC money and hype

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by noodler ( 724788 )

      Can someone in the know drop some knowledge on me?

      Well, the rationalization usually goes something like: "It's Quantum, bitches!".
      I don't think any of the involved investors have more motivation than that.

    • I didn't read the paywall article because fuck paywalled articles and fuck bloomberg too while I'm at it, but there are lots of kinds of "quantum" besides quantum computing. Exploitation of recently discovered quantum effects is a growing "field" (it's really across many fields, but anyway) and it would be a worthwhile place to spend some money. The first couple of paragraphs gave no clue as to whether that was up for discussion, and I'm not going to bother to jump through any hoops to see the rest since th

    • Re:Okay, I'm ignorant. Please help. Quantum tech? (Score:4, Informative)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday October 28, 2022 @10:56AM (#63005881)

      Quantum computing and quantum networking are two different things.

      Chicago is planning to dominate only quantum networking, which uses entangled photons for key exchange.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by JMZero ( 449047 )

        Sure... but you don't need quantum networking (at any scale, anyway) unless you have quantum computers (or some other threat) to break current encryption methods.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          It's not clear that you need quantum networks even then. I mean, they would make things easier, but not easier enough to justify everyone keeping a jug of liquid helium for their modem. And if it's only for the huge corporations and labs, how do you justify the network?

          But there are LOTS of other things that *COULD* legitimately be called quantum. Even artificial photosynthesis could end up with that claim (the natural one does).

          All that said, who's going to do what jobs, and why would they want to live

    • The market for quantum is always going to be tiny.

      Also, Illinois is ranked #11 for business friendliness:
      https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/1... [cnbc.com]

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      They're talking about quantum cryptography, which involves sending signals that cannot be eavsdropped on. It's real, although it's not cleaer how many applications actually benefit from it.

      You're describing quantum computing, which is real but practical only for very small problems so far.

      • Is quantum networking where they use two entangled photos to try and transmit data instantly over any distance? I would think that's the idea, but I'm curious if I'm right. I mean theoretically that means you could transmit a lot of data to anywhere, instantly, and without any possible eavesdropping. Right? The Quantum Computing thing is supposed to result in a super fast CPU that can compute impossible problems more or less instantly, right? These claim seem pretty extreme. I just wonder if what they are p

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by noodler ( 724788 )

          Is quantum networking where they use two entangled photos to try and transmit data instantly over any distance?

          Nope, that is impossible.
          What they do is send out one of a pair of entangled photons and then put the one they keep in a special state. This state is then also automatically imposed on the one they sent out and they can use normal non-quantum communication to check this.
          BUT, if anyone touches the photon being sent out to the other side then this imposing of the state is completely messed up and when checking they can find this out.
          So, with this system you can find out if someone touched (read) the photon be

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          You can't transmit data instantly. There's a good tutorial on quantum computing and teleportation here, if you're interested in the details: https://quantum.country./ [quantum.country.]

          What you do is send the recipient a particle that is entangled with another particle that you keep. You can then perform a few of operations on your particle, make a couple of measurements, and send the result of those measurements, conventionally and in the clear, to the recipient. The recipient then performs particular operations on their par

    • Not even out of the lab yet. Proof of concepts are still work in progress, afaict. Makes for decently sensational speculative journalism. It generally requires low temperature so its quite expensive too. I'm skeptical we're anywhere close to it being available commercially for...long time. Your limited by the supply of smart people probability more than even the exhorbitant costs. Its really tricky to do real quantum anything. Its a hard problem. Also what is it? I think you gotta think in terms of applicat

  • quantum -- a technology that could ensure everything from emails to online shopping is 100% secure

    Why doesn't bloomberg fire these obviously incompetent reporters?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      Quantum mumbo-jumbo ensures their jobs are 100% secure. Did you think Bloomberg editors are rocket scientists or something?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by noodler ( 724788 )

        Quantum mumbo-jumbo ensures their jobs are 100% secure. Did you think Bloomberg editors are rocket scientists or something?

        But everyone knows that the quantum mumbo-jumbo ensures their jobs are 50% secure and 50% insecure at the same time.

      • Quantum is the new climate change

  • Is not practical and all implementations so far have been broken.

  • Chicago might wqant to bet on (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Friday October 28, 2022 @11:27AM (#63006013)

    Improving public security.
    Reforming their tax structure so businesses aren't running away.
    Cleaning up their political landscape so you don't feel like you have to bribe everyone that works for the city to do business there.

    For side bets they could look at how they could further leverage being the nations premier transportation hub, being a key river port, the nations busiest air terminal and our largest rail hub.

    Just a thought, then again in the future maybe we won't have to move things from here to there.

    • Chicago metro area has a GDP of +900 billion, to put that in perspective Chicago alone has a GDP of 1/3 the UK - if it was an independent country it would be in the top 20 in the world in terms of GDP. Chicago has problems for in large part because companies want to work there (crowding, traffic, expensive) not because they are running away. It is a right wing fantasy that all you need is low taxes for businesses to come running to you for you to be successful - Chicago is a strategic location as a transpor

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        You only focused on one of his claims for "needs improvement", and that not the top one. I can't judge which of you are correct on that claim, but the others would suffice to cause me not to want to locate there. (Additionally, I'm never met anyone from Chicago who missed it. And I've met several, though not a good statistical sample.)

      • All you have done with that post is added another item to my list of things Chicago can do that have a higher expected return than betting on quantum computing.
        Improving their public transportation infrastructure.

        nobody gives a shit that the tax rate is a few percent higher some city without these assets.

        Man I'm glad Caterpillar and Boeing got your memo, also it seems the city population didn't get the memo either

  • front-running trading on the CME, at least in part, yes?
  • Chicago has University of Chicago, Fermi Lab and Argonne National Lab, great places for this research.
    Now, who wants to be the center for AGI?
    https://www.genolve.com/design... [genolve.com]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HiThere ( 15173 )

      Were I to bet, I'd bet somewhere around Geneva. But I'd want favorable odds. It could be Beijing, or even Delhi. (Probably not Palo Alto, though.)

  • The city that is losing people, has horrendous crime, is essentially bankrupt, and which has the second highest tax rate of any city in the US [illinoispolicy.org] is going to turn itself into a quantum mecca? Me thinks not.

  • comcast quantum only $199/mo for an 1TB cap!

  • Except for more crime and pro-crime policy from the rogue government.

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