Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) gave a speech at the Manufacturing x Digital Quantum Technology Summit.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00How's everybody doing today? Make it one piece-ish? Fantastic. Welcome to MxD. My name is Chris
00:12Dufour. I'm here with a fantastic team of people who are putting this Quantum Manufacturing
00:16Summit event on. I wanted to make a couple of quick administrative remarks to get us
00:22started for the day and then we're going to jump into a pretty packed agenda of some fun
00:27things to talk about today. Again, I want to extend a welcome on behalf of all of us
00:32that work here at MxD. A couple of very simple admin things I'd like to mention very first.
00:39If you're looking for restrooms, there is a women's room right outside the doors here.
00:43On the other side of whatever that is, the theater over there, is the men's room. We
00:51also have some other restrooms down this way. If you're having trouble, if you need a private
00:58room, if you need any other type of special accommodation, please grab any one of us with
01:02the MxD badge on. Some of us have a couple of lanyards. You can look for that very sexy
01:07logo right there. I'm sorry? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I'm staying too close to speakers
01:17and IEDs all my life. That's restrooms. Please help yourself to as much refreshments we've got
01:24out there. We're going to have lunch a little bit later on. All that is out there for you. I
01:28don't care if you run away with the water and everything. It will be very, very tasty, I
01:33promise. Let's see here. I do want to mention very quickly, for those of you who have not
01:39been to MxD before or for those of you who have not been here in a while, we will be doing a
01:45factory floor tour a little bit later on. There is a sign-up sheet in the atrium where you
01:50checked in for security and picked up your badges. If you're interested in going, please make
01:55sure you go out at one of the breaks and sign up for that tour. It's a good time. I promise you
02:00I've been on it several, several times. I learn something new every time I go through. Good
02:04times. Those things being said and being equal, let's go ahead and kick off. Again, I want to
02:10reiterate, if anybody's got any problems, issues, please come and see me. Lori, anybody else
02:15with an MxD badge on, we're here to help you and make sure you had a good time today. Those
02:19things being said, I'm going to turn it over to our CEO, Mr. Berardino-Barrada, to get us
02:24started.
02:25Thank you, Chris. Good morning, everyone. How's everyone doing? Anyone coming from the
02:33south, you're welcome for escaping the heat. We planned the weather just for you. I'm
02:38Berardino-Barrada. I'm the CEO of MxD, and I have the pleasure and the honor of running
02:42this incredible organization. Quantum computing promises an unparalleled capability to solve
02:48problems that today are considered unsolvable. When you think about it, from optimizing supply
02:53chains to advancing material science, the applications truly are limitless, and that's what
02:57we're here to discuss today. Under the leadership of our esteemed governor, Illinois has
03:01become a beacon of innovation and sustainability. Governor Pritzker's unwavering support to
03:07innovation and technology advancement, including cutting-edge technologies like quantum computing,
03:11artificial intelligence, and electric vehicles, is really driving economic growth in the state
03:17and creating high-paying, wonderful jobs for Illinoisans. Governor Pritzker's vision is
03:22not just to try to keep pace with the technology, but really to truly be a leader within this
03:27space, to have this state truly lead in the execution of it. His commitment to fostering
03:32a collaborative environment where industry, academia, and government work together to
03:37solve these challenges and to set new standards for success. Please welcome me in inviting
03:43Governor Pritzker and welcoming him to the stage.
03:48Well, good morning, everyone. Oh, we can do better than that. Good morning. There we go.
03:56Love to hear that. Well, I know there's coffee somewhere in the back, so it really is an
04:05honor to be here to kick off this inaugural Quantum Technology Summit. I am proud to welcome
04:14all of you who are from out of town to this historic conference here in Chicago, and of
04:19course, all of you who are from in town. This is an amazing space. If you haven't spent
04:23time here or gotten to know the people, the members, the people who work here every single
04:30day, so do take that opportunity. I want to thank our hosts, MXD and the Block
04:36Quantum Tech Hub, for hosting us and for providing a platform for these vital conversations about
04:44a topic that is so important to our future. And to MXD CEO Berardino, thank you very much.
04:52Thanks for your leadership. Thanks for helping to make MXD such a huge success for Chicago
04:58and for Illinois. The quantum revolution is upon us, and we are here. And what seemed
05:03like an abstract and really out of reach technology just a few years ago has quickly become among
05:13the defining technological questions of this generation. You might say that this has been
05:18a 30-year overnight success. While the U.S. is in a worldwide competition
05:30with our national security and economic rivals, here in Illinois, our research institutions
05:37are giving our nation a big leg up in that competition. Our world-class research institutions
05:43like the Argonne National Laboratory, like Fermilab, University of Chicago, University
05:49of Illinois, and Northwestern, among a number of others, have produced some of the most
05:55advanced quantum and AI research in the entire world. And five years ago, our state began
06:02investing in the effort to make us a global hub for quantum science and commercialization.
06:08That catalyzed Illinois winning the largest and the most federal grants in quantum research.
06:16That's a big deal when you think about the competition among the states in the United
06:21States. It says a lot about the quality of the people that we have here and the institutions
06:26that we have here, the recognition that we're getting in Washington, D.C., and of course,
06:32our great senior United States senator, who I'll introduce in a little bit, who helped
06:36to bring funding for those grants and much more. We are still among the only states,
06:43as a state government, to invest in and actualize a plan for a quantum future for the people
06:50of our state. Harnessing the full power of this transformative technology takes more
06:55than just money. It requires coordination between public and private sectors, between
07:01information providers and research institutions. It requires human capital development. It
07:10requires venture capital investment, a dedication to advanced manufacturing, development of
07:17commercial applications, and a concerted focus on cybersecurity.
07:22And I want to say that I feel like it's Groundhog Day, because a number of years ago, I was
07:28involved in helping to lift Chicago in the information technology world to make sure
07:36that we had really missed out on an opportunity a number of years ago, back in the early 90s,
07:42late 80s, when at the University of Illinois, with a supercomputer, with ARPANET connecting,
07:50with lots of PhDs and others who were playing around with this thing that nobody really
07:55had a name for other than ARPANET, that became the Internet.
07:59We had the opportunity in Illinois to become the leader, the focus, sort of the Silicon
08:04Valley of the new Internet age, and we missed that opportunity, because so much of the technology
08:11that got developed there, and many of the companies, YouTube, PayPal, we can go through
08:16a list of companies that got started, you know, Mosaic was the first browser, inline
08:22graphic browser that anybody could really use, that popularized the Internet.
08:27Unfortunately, all those companies and the technology and the people who developed it
08:32kind of got up and left, and they left because they were attracted to other places who were
08:37providing a welcoming environment and capital, and where the government was, you know, helping
08:43them to succeed.
08:45So with the advent of quantum, I want to be clear to all of you, we're not going to miss
08:49that opportunity.
08:51But I was involved in trying to lift Chicago up from being kind of in the mid-teens in
08:56terms of our ranking among cities in the United States for Internet and information technology,
09:03and we succeeded in some ways.
09:05We certainly are in the top ten now for cities in the country in the development of the Internet,
09:12but in quantum, we're number one, and we're going to stay number one, because we're going
09:17to make these kinds of investments.
09:18Harnessing the power of this transformative technology, though, takes much more than just
09:23money, and broadly speaking, what it takes is a quantum ecosystem, and those are the
09:31things that we are intending to enter in the process of building here in Chicago and Illinois.
09:38Driven in part by the support and power of the block and of duality, Chicago is already
09:43home to many of the major and developing players in quantum.
09:49Some of the startups that you may know and have heard of, and some of you may come from
09:53Inflection, MemQ, Q-Braid, D-Wave, AeroQ, and those are just a few.
10:00There are many others, and we want players from around the country, from startups to
10:04Fortune 50 tech companies, to build their futures here in the Chicagoland.
10:09We have all the necessary ingredients, from talented scientists, to startup capital, to
10:15the best equipped labs in the entire world, and the largest companies in the United States.
10:20We're the second largest home of Fortune 500 companies in the entire country.
10:27What the ecosystem needs is sometimes for government to step out of the way, but also
10:34for government to remove some of the barriers, like the massive investment in cryo facilities
10:40and fabrication labs that many of the quantum hardware companies need and normally require,
10:51but it's too expensive for each individual company, and they need a home for collaboration
10:56and partnership.
10:58Six months ago, I proposed that we tackle these problems, and I went to the General
11:03Assembly here in Illinois and asked that we build all of what I just described on an
11:11independent quantum campus right here in the Chicago area, a place where the sharpest minds
11:18in quantum could come together to shape the future of the industry, catalyzing private
11:23capital to come here, and even more public investment into this burgeoning field.
11:28I even proposed a series of tax incentives and an international quantum enterprise zone.
11:34Well, the General Assembly approved all of that in May, and now we have a $500 million
11:44investment that's going to be planted here in the Chicago area.
11:47We'll be making more and more announcements about that relatively soon and about companies
11:52that we're partnering with, but just two days ago, the Defense Advanced Research Project
11:57Agency, DARPA, became our very first partner.
12:02They came to us a couple of months ago when they heard we were trying to do this, and
12:06we started discussing it, and what they've announced two days ago with us is that they'll
12:12commit up to $140 million to locate a joint quantum proving ground on our quantum campus
12:19where quantum computing prototypes will be tested and evaluated as part of DARPA's quantum
12:26benchmarking initiative.
12:28So we're going to host now on that campus the most innovative, renowned federal agency
12:39in innovation, the same organization that was responsible for things like ARPANET and
12:48things like the development of GPS and weather satellites, and there's a whole big long list
12:55of technologies that they began to develop often for defense purposes, but that became
13:02technologies that all of us use in everyday life.
13:05Quantum has the potential to revolutionize the world as we know it and unlock scientific
13:10and technological progress beyond our expectations with applications from cybersecurity to pharmaceuticals
13:17to manufacturing and beyond.
13:19I had someone describe to me just the other day the opportunity to take what could other
13:25wise take 10 or 15 years to develop a cure for a challenging disease, that take that
13:33time frame that often is just test, test, test, test, you know, 5,000 molecules over
13:40a long period of time and be able to do something that otherwise took 10 or 15 years in three
13:46weeks.
13:47So imagine what we would be able to do if we were the hub of quantum technology in the
13:53country.
13:54So we have an opportunity and a responsibility to wield this great technology for the betterment
14:01of the entire world.
14:03Illinois has fast become a leading quantum ecosystem with fast developing infrastructure,
14:09major players in government, finance, business, and academia are making Illinois the epicenter
14:15of the quantum revolution.
14:16I want to extend an invitation to all of you to be part of that very same thing.
14:21For those of you who are here in town to help gather the ecosystem that we've been
14:27putting together and be part of that.
14:30For those of you from out of town, move to Chicago.
14:35Become part of our ecosystem.
14:36We're not only the best state in the nation to grow your quantum enterprise, we're also
14:40the best place in the country to live, work, play, and raise a family.
14:46And so I am grateful to all of you for being here, for joining us.
14:50Thank you for being a part of today's enterprise.
14:55And to all of you who are visiting, make sure you try Chicago pizza if you haven't done
15:00that before.
15:02Enjoy a Chicago hot dog.
15:04But most of all, enjoy your stay in our great state.
15:07I almost missed the opportunity to introduce really one of the great statesmen in our country
15:17who happens also to be our senior United States Senator and someone who provides the
15:23funding.
15:24I mean, he fights for the funding that makes everything that I just talk about possible.
15:30That DARPA succeeds, that new technologies that we want developed by the federal government
15:37succeeding, all is a result of work that gets done on the Senate floor by the Senate Majority
15:45Whip and our longtime and great, powerful Senator Dick Durbin.