Pete Hegseth’s Department of War is building America’s largest quantum computing project right here on the Southside of Chicago, to the detriment of not only our city but the world at large. Gov. JB Pritzker has lauded the venture capital project as an unprecedented opportunity to make Illinois the “Silicon Valley of quantum development.” With whose consent? On whose land? And on whose dime?

When examining the backers of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP), it is difficult to rationalize this $9 billion project as anything but an accelerative altar to militarism. Alongside federal backing from DARPA, investors such as BlackRock, IBM, and Israeli startup Quantum Machines have all cited quantum technology as the next frontier in modern warfare. The military-industrial complex has emphatically doubled down on quantum computing technology and advanced computing in AI alike as the next crucial edges in 21st-century militarism. Indeed, AI technology in warfare is already being used extensively by the US and Israel to terrorize the SWANA region.

Even with the considerable private capital financing already allotted to this project's troubling Big Tech-war machine alliance, Illinois taxpayers are the top funders of IQMP by far. To the sum of more than 700 million state dollars, the land and water beneath our feet have been sold out to private equity military contracts. As families across our cities starve, as rent costs go up and our unhoused neighbors are continually displaced, we must stop the flow of state and city resources from being directed to a global surveillance state hellbent on mass destruction.

On a local level, the Chicago City Council has unanimously approved the Quantum Park's construction on three separate occasions, with Mayor Brandon Johnson contributing $5 million from the city’s already strained budget. The contrast between the typical glacial speed of approval from City Council and the suspiciously rapid approval process of this project is jarring to say the least,........

© Common Dreams