It is 2050. The Chicago region is the beating pulse of Earth’s most prized commodity — information.
We are still a trading center, having moved deftly in the 20th century from stockyards to steel to the Chicago Board of Trade’s futures pits, and now to the fiber optics, algorithms and satellite links of the global quantum internet. Ours is an economy built from entangled qubits, or quantum bits — the foundation of technologies that have changed how the world sends, stores, protects and processes the information encoding nearly every inch of our lives.
Today, in the 2050s, quantum networks send information that protects our banks, power grids and personal identities. Quantum sensors guide our planes and can alert us if Lake Michigan leaks into the ground beneath our skyscrapers. Quantum computers calculate in fractions of a second what would have taken classical supercomputers septillions of years, enabling us to create personalized pharmaceuticals and materials with extraordinary properties.
Years ago, back in the 2010s and 2020s, the Chicago region bet big on quantum computing, communication and sensing, new forms of super-powerful information processing. Today, a Quantum Prairie spanning Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana drives more than one-third of the global quantum economy. Many of the world’s quantum-based innovations were invented, designed or manufactured here. We’re home to hundreds of quantum technology companies, the backbone of the nation’s quantum-based information security infrastructure and the center of the U.S. quantum technology supply chain. Our universities and colleges are among the best in the world at preparing quantum workers of all levels, having spent decades collaborating with industry to equip students with a precise blend of skills.
Quantum is baked into our regional identity, and with good reason: Hundreds of thousands of our residents, from technicians to engineers to lawyers, are employed by a sector that has changed the way we live, heal and communicate.
Just look around.
Today, a woman from Pilsen picks up a medication customized by quantum computers for her body’s specific needs. The “disease” being treated — discovered at the molecular level using quantum sensors made from her body’s own proteins — might have killed her two decades earlier. Instead, she’s thinking about her favorite activity, kayaking on the Chicago River, rather than the specter of grueling treatments.
In Ravenswood, a high school student boards a Brown Line train while his parents head to work along DuSable Lake Shore Drive. A network of quantum sensors now monitors the structural integrity of bridges and “L” tracks, and quantum computers optimize a fleet of driverless vehicles coordinated with encrypted commands for perfect flow. The entire family will enjoy easy, safe and predictable commutes.
In Beverly, a man pays his daughter’s college tuition knowing that the bank transfer is perfectly secure. An art historian from Bronzeville heads to the Art Institute, where she uses quantum technologies to “see” through layers of paint, stone or charred parchment without exposing the artifacts to harmful radiation or touch. In Edgewater, a grandmother remembers when heat waves could max out the power grid, hackers could steal credit card numbers, and supply chain disruptions could trigger medication, food or even toilet paper shortages. Quantum technologies have made those challenges and others symbols of a bygone era.
Chicago can’t take credit for all of these innovations, of course — there are quantum scientists, innovators and manufacturers all over the world. But we do feel a strong and well-earned sense of pride: Our investments, hard work and willingness to collaborate helped fuel the global quantum revolution. It secured our region’s economic future, too.
So much of who we are as Chicagoans is woven into the quantum sector. From the beginning, we took stock of where other tech revolutions had stumbled, and we tried to do better. We scaled a quantum supply chain and developed a skilled workforce, ensuring that our discoveries would develop and deploy here instead of on the coasts. Our collective ethos guided us to develop our ecosystem equitably, ensuring that communities across the Quantum Prairie would reap dividends.
This essay is part of a series developed in collaboration with World Business Chicago wherein accomplished authors envision what Chicago could and should look like in 2050.
In the mid-2030s, Chicago even developed the world’s first Quantum Ethics Commission, a globally recognized body that sets standards for responsible quantum technology use and development — for instance, setting privacy and encryption standards for biological and forensic quantum sensors. Chicago’s QEC has also led a global effort to develop quantum technologies for human rights protections, including quantum shields for whistleblowers and quantum computers capable of detecting potential human trafficking patterns.
A quarter century ago, we could see glimmers of this future laid out before us as pure possibility. If you’d asked me in 2026 to predict the future, I would have told you prediction is a risky game. We had no way of knowing which of these innovations would develop first or on what timeline. I would have told you that the most profound applications would be the ones we couldn’t yet imagine.
But what I’m describing now would not have surprised me in 2026. Quantum technology has always had the potential to transform our lives and our region. We worked hard to achieve this reality, investing in people, infrastructure and ideas while partnering across institutions, sectors and borders.
It hasn’t been easy. But this is the Chicago way: taking the raw materials of the era, be they livestock, steel or entangled particles, and refining them into an engine of global progress.
We made the bet more than a quarter century ago that information would be the most prized commodity on the earth.
It paid off.
David Awschalom is the Liew Family professor of quantum engineering and physics and the University of Chicago, founding director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange and senior scientist at Argonne National Laboratory.
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