Anonymous submission to Unsalted Counter Info.
We offer to you on “World Quantum Day” this report-back of recent movement building and protest against the specter of Quantum in so-called Chicago.
On the spring equinox, March 20, 2025, opponents of a plan to build the 9 Billion dollar Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park(IQMP) on the shores of southern Lake Michigan or Mishigami, disrupted an event that the Chicago Architecture Center hosted to sell the project to the public.
A dozen people rallied outside of the entrance of the swank downtown offices of the Chicago Architecture Center Thursday, calling simultaneously for the whole project to be stopped entirely, but also to make sure that the people are not forgotten if developers were to go forward with terraforming the lakefront to make room for this massive tech campus, and that there are also plans to ensure that somehow it would benefit the people currently living in the neighborhoods and the local ecosystem, not corporate profit and militarization. Colorful banners and signs held by people had the words, “Invest in People, Not Quantum”, “Quantum = Displacement: The Lake is for the People, Not Your Supercomputer” and “Love Mishigami, Hate Killer Quantum” while others played music and chanted.
The Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics park (IQMP) is currently planned for 128 acres of the 400 acres that Related Midwest is purchasing from the former owner, US Steel. The IQMP site is between Steelworkers park on the north and the Calumet River on the South side, directly on Lake Michigan in the South Chicago neighborhood. Nine Billion dollars of private funded and taxpayer money will support this experimental project to build a supercomputer whose only proven technology is encrypting and decrypting data.
Inside, two Chicago Alder people, Gregory Mitchell of the 7th ward and Peter Chico of the 10th ward (the communities most impacted by the project), the PsiQuantum Executive VP Josh Richman and Related Midwest President Curt Bailey were part of a presentation followed by a question and answer session.
Questions asked of the above panel by attendees that paid to be at the downtown Architecture Center event were mostly supportive, which was a sharp contrast from a community meeting held at Bowen High School in the impacted southside neighborhood just two days earlier (https://southsideweekly.com/quantum-site-met-with-opposition-at-southeast-side-meeting/), . At the earlier community meeting (https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/03/19/activists-disrupt-south-works-meeting-over-community-benefits-environmental-concerns/), residents relentlessly berated the city Economic Director, Thomas Anderson, for pushing an expensive project with a lack of transparency that will likely bring with it gentrification and displacement, exposure to environmental toxins left by the former steel mill, and increased policing that the microelectronics park, which will house Department of Defense Research (IL-DARPA).
It is also difficult to understate the dangers posed to the global community if this quantum tech becomes functional and in the hands of the US military; it is an extreme upping the ante of the cyberwar arms race, as other nations will be pressed to develop their own encryption breaking tech in defense. The US government is already scraping social-media and expressed plans to use AI to assist their efforts to mass-incarcerate and mass-deport migrants, including green card holders and those with student or work VISAs, like currently is being seen with the targeted disappearing of Palestinian rights activists. Imagine how much the state can turbo-charge their efforts when the door is ripped off for encryption, we lose one of the few tools of defense available for people against overreaching authoritative governments invading their privacy. Considering the tech-laced fascism of the current regime, it is chilling to consider the implications of this, read more on this here(https://itsgoingdown.org/good-night-tech-right-pull-the-plug-on-ai-fascism/ ) and here https://faqs.noblogs.org/post/2024/12/28/communique-1/
A presentation attendee at the Architecture Center event relayed the concerns heard at the community meeting, which were not being addressed by the panel. Instead of responding, one person on the panel responded by merely saying, “thank you.” and then moderator went immediately to the next question. The fact that the V.P. of PsiQuantum and the moderator of the panel would not address these important community questions, was very telling and cause for serious concern!
At one point in the program, folks rallying in the front of the Architecture Center walked around the building to a central courtyard adjacent to the meeting room, which had glass windows. They held up their banners and signs next the glass windows for program attendees to see and chanted on the bullhorn and played loud music. As shades were pulled down, the protestors outside began to bang on the glass windows, further disrupting the event.
The event wrapped up shortly after the banging on the windows and chanting outside began. Opponents of the experimental supercomputer, stood outside and gave information to passerbyers and attendees coming out the presentation to warn them of the dangers of the IQMP. Chalk written on sidewalks serve as warnings, drawings of fish out of water saying “please don’t poison me”, “Water is Life! Quantum is Death!” “Lakefront For The People”. It is imperative for Anti-Quantum activism to increase and become experimental in tactics if we are ever serious on stopping this project from being built. Get connected with the community, many groups are organizing against this dangerous military technology, which developers hope to begin breaking ground imminently, perhaps even right now this spring. But for now, you can go there, just use best practice op-sec as surveillance is likely to increase around the land as they get closer to development.