Everything You Need to Know About the Illinois Quantum Microelectronics Park (aka. Quantum Campus)
An Ongoing DAPS (the Displaced Alliance for Pan-African Socialists) Analysis of the IQPM
Introduction
The Illinois Quantum Microelectronics Park, currently being constructed in South Shore on the former Steel Workers Mill site with the full backing of Illinois and Chicago politicians, is not an innocent project of mere technological advancement. It is definitely not a development that we as Chicagoans, and specifically Southsiders, should be happy about.
This project is being pushed forward by Israeli (zionist) institutions and the U.S. Department of War to create new, even more advanced weapons and technology that they will use against Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities in our own city. Also targeting and harming oppressed communities abroad, especially Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and all of occupied Palestine.
The quantum campus means an escalation of genocide — both the genocide that the U.S. has been committing of Black and Indigenous people for centuries, as well as the genocide that the Western world, through the zionist entity (the so-called, present-day state of “israel”), has been committing of Palestinians. The quantum-equipped weaponry will also get exported throughout the world to further allow the Western nations to control and massacre communities throughout Latin America, Africa and Asia.
In addition to the type of technology being developed, this facility will further worsen the living conditions of people living in the predominantly Black neighborhood of South Shore through environmental pollution and gentrification. In addition to the health issues people will experience from the pollution, if the facility gets built, residents’ utility bills will increase, as we have seen occur nationwide with AI-generating facilities and other data centers, and property taxes in South Shore will keep rising. Affluent university professors, scientists and stakeholders in the quantum companies will displace our people from South Shore.
It will also put the drinking water source of Chicagoans — Lake Michigan — at risk due to its location on the lakefront. The gobbling up of our public land and access to nature by greedy corporations is just another reality we’re facing that would get accelerated by this facility. And the environmental pollution would endanger our Collective Natural Ecosystem, putting biodiversity and harmony at risk for all life forms beyond only humanity.
We have to stop the development of IQMP to protect our own communities and neighbors and to be in solidarity with oppressed people around the world. Say no to quantum campus!
The Six Quantum Companies
The six quantum companies that will be building their technologies on-site at IQMP are PsiQuantum, Infleqtion, Pasqal, Diraq, IBM and Quantum Machines.
All of them develop quantum for “defense” purposes for the U.S., the zionist state (“israel”), and other Western nations’ militaries. We must make it clear that the usage of the term “defense” by the Western nations is a mask for what is actually an offensive, imperialist campaign to constantly perpetuate violence against the native and working class peoples globally.
The six quantum companies all profit from the West’s imperialist agenda, its perpetual wars and violence against Black, Brown and Indigenous people globally and domestically.
PsiQuantum, Diraq, and IBM all have contracts with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is the Department of War agency spearheading IQMP as part of its larger initiative to partner with quantum companies to create the first “fault-tolerant” quantum computer. DARPA’s goal is for this quantum computer to have practical applications for military needs. Infleqtion has partnerships with the U.S. army and provides quantum technology for the military needs of the U.K., Australia and other U.S. allies as well.
Not only is Quantum Machines the sixth tenant of IQMP, but its technology is already in use and heavily relied upon by the rest of the IQMP tenants already mentioned.
Quantum Machines is an Israeli startup based in Tel Aviv, and it runs the Israeli Quantum Computing Center (IQCC) with funding from the Israel Innovation Authority and The Israeli Ministry of Defense Directorate of Defense Research and Development (DDR&D). The IQCC serves as the pillar of the zionist entity’s national quantum program. Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, is a strategic partner of the IQCC and on the central advisory board. Elbit Systems is applying the quantum technology being tested and developed at QM’s center to the zionist state’s military operations.
After October 7th, 2023, or the Al-Aqsa Flood, and in the acceleration of Israel’s ongoing genocide of Palestinians and destruction of Palestine, staff at Quantum Machines and IQCC also served in the reserves of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), also commonly known as the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), further showing how interconnected this quantum company is with the zionist entity’s military and government that is occupying Palestine and protracting a campaign of mass extermination and displacement targeting the Palestinian people and seeking to expand its occupation of land to the rest of The Arab World via the "greater israel" agenda.
Furthermore, the Chicago Quantum Exchange, a collaboration between Chicagoland universities (namely UChicago, UIC, Northwestern University and UIUC), is greatly involved in IQMP and primarily has Israeli institutions as the CQE’s international partners, specifically the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) and Weizmann Institute. Graduates from the Weizmann Institute make up the leadership of Quantum Machines, and the Israel Institute of Technology has a longstanding partnership with Israeli weapons manufacturers, including Elbit Systems.
Leadership at the IQCC has explicitly stated that their goal is to bring the most advanced technology developed by quantum computers worldwide, like the IQMP being constructed in our very own Chicago, to the zionist state for any and all of its needs. Just like the genocidal zionist entity depends on the potential advancements made by IQMP, IQMP will be unable to function without Quantum Machines due to QM’s role in providing the control system for the quantum computer. Just like how the U.S. and the zionist entity already exchange training for their police forces and already exchange weaponry (eg., drones), the IQMP represents a new and concerning development in the U.S.-Israel exchange of the methods by which they together will subjugate and massacre millions upon millions of people.
What is bad for the Palestinians, is bad for us as well. We must act in solidarity with the Palestinian people and oppressed people worldwide.
The U.S. and the zionist entity have both committed great violence against the African continent in addition to the Arab regions, and this violence will only increase when the U.S. and the zionist state gets their hands on more advanced quantum warfare technology through the IQMP. For example, the new technology will easily be shared with the U.S.- and zionism’s puppet regime of the UAE, which has been sending arms to the RSF to commit a genocide of the Sudanese people. Additionally, minerals needed for making the quantum technology’s hardware (eg., cobalt, most likely) come from the Congo where israeli/zionist billionaires like Dan Gertler now profit from mining operations that are deadly and exploitative for the Congolese who have to labor in the mines and where Rwanda, backed by Western nations and multinational corporations, is carrying out a genocide of Congolese people for more land and minerals.
If we do nothing to stop the development of IQMP in our own city, all of the blood of Palestinians, Arabs, Africans, and more communities of the Global South will be on our hands too, not just on the hands of the facility’s stakeholders and leaders. And ultimately, our blood will be spilled too when quantum-powered weaponry and military/policing technology come back home to be used against us after being used and tested on Palestinians and others in the Global South in what is often described as the “imperial boomerang.” We’ve seen this occur already with drones that were used to kill Palestinians now being used by CPD to police and surveil Chicagoans. It’s high time that we realize that our well-being and freedom are deeply intertwined with that of the global majority, the Indigenous people experiencing the brunt of Western colonialism around the world.
Some of the specific ways that have already been outlined by the six quantum companies and DARPA for how quantum technology will be used by U.S., the zionist entity and other Western militaries and “defense” sectors include:
increasing surveillance by ending digital privacy/security and private, end-to-end encrypted online communication for civilians while simultaneously making government communications unhackable
faster and more accurate simulations of military plans/complex defense systems
much more effective and accurate sensing and tracking and more control over navigation and timing, particularly for operating unmanned military vehicles (eg., tanks and fighter jets) and weapons (eg., drones and missiles) on land, air and water terrains and for surveilling and targeting people and places to a new degree (for example, better sensing capabilities for detecting and targeting underground structures). This sensing and tracking will also be harder to jam or disrupt
new forms of rocket fuel/explosive materials through simulating natural materials and their chemical reactions
optimized deployment of drones and other vehicles/weaponry
Given that the zionist entity has already used weapons technology that evaporated thousands of Palestinians, it is not hard to imagine how much more the never-before-reached heights of quantum weapons technology will increase the ability of the U.S. and the zionist state to threaten people into complete submission and annihilate any people still standing in the way of their ceaseless resource and land theft and ambitions for easier capitalist exploitation and world domination. Quantum advancements made by the IQMP will undoubtedly give the U.S. and the zionist entity the power to wipe out entire nations and populations, beyond the ability they already have to do so.
The Stakeholders
Who is to blame for this war-profiteering, weapons-advancing facility being built in our city? Who will we target in our campaign to stop IQMP from continuing to be built?
Governor J.B. Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson are investing over $9 billion dollars into this facility at a time when Chicago families are struggling to afford the rising costs for their basic needs of housing and food and more and more people are ending up houseless and on the streets.
While residents in South Shore experienced a massive raid on their apartment building from the feds and were subsequently evicted, Pritzker and Johnson were welcoming in the Department of War to set up permanent shop in this neighborhood. The Department of War agency spearheading the quantum campus, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), has thanked Pritzker by name in its promotional materials.
While the mayor feigns as if we have no resources to create better infrastructure for working class peoples and the governor feigns as if he resists military presence through his rhetorical admonishing of ICE presence, both have stolen billions of dollars from working class people in Chicago and Illinois to open this backdoor for the U.S. Department of War to occupy the South Side.
All Chicago and Illinois politicians have given their support to this facility in some way or another or through their silence and refusal to make any effort, not even action-less lip service, to stop the project.
It is solely up to us, the working class people in Chicago, to close that backdoor to the Department of War and prevent the further militarization of the South Side. It is a waste of our time and energy to pretend that begging complicit politicians will lead to the stoppage of this facility that they are all eagerly supporting and investing in.
Chicagoland universities are also deeply invested in this facility, from constituting the IQMP partner Chicago Quantum Exchange to having their academic leadership and administrators on the IQMP board and operating the financial accounts for the facility’s construction. The CEO for IQMP is Harley Johnson, a professor at UIUC.
Related Midwest and Clayton Real Estate Group bought the property and are leasing it to the six quantum companies who will be “tenants” at the facility, making these property owners additional targets for our campaign.
Although IQMP’s construction is not scheduled to be done until the summer of 2027, we cannot sit around and wait until then to plan and carry out an effective and ultimately victorious campaign against IQMP. IQMP has on-ramp facilities, buildings in Chicago where as early as April of 2026, the six quantum companies will have moved in with their technology and personnel and started their work for the Department of War and the zionist state even before the actual IQMP facility is ready.
A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
The people, companies and universities behind the IQMP are relying on Chicagoans not doing their research into the real intents and purposes of quantum campus. So far, they have been lying to and trying to warp the minds of the kids in Chicago Public Schools and their families to support the project and even to one day work for the facility, where these people would contribute to tremendous harm that will be done against their own community and people around the world.
IQMP stakeholders have been doing this through collaborating with Science Olympiad and running after-school programming in the areas surrounding the facility to give themselves a fake, positive public image. IQMP is in the following schools already with plans to add more to the list: Bowen High School, Saint Frances De Sales High School, Thomas Hoyne Fine Arts Elementary School, Robert A Black Magnet Elementary School, Ninos Heroes Elementary School, and James Madison Elementary School.
IQMP also operates Saturday Morning Quantum, a 10-session program hosted at Olive-Harvey College for high school students that aims to get these students on the pathway to one day work for one of the world’s many military-equipping, war-profiting quantum companies.
This April, IQMP is even partnering with CPS for its Chi-Craft competition to get 800+ students from middle and high schools to design the IQMP quantum campus facility themselves in Minecraft. They will use this competition to lie to them about the real IQMP and recruit them for their programs.
We want our kids to pursue work that benefits their community and make the world a better place, not a job that will cause more death and destruction worldwide at the hands of the U.S. or harm their own community. We believe in free job training and youth development as well as high-quality STEM education, but we reject the idea that the war profiteers at the IQMP should be the ones we look to for these needs.
IQMP is not satisfied with corrupting only our children as their potential workforce and accomplices to their local and global violence. At the February IQMP board meeting, board members advocated for targeting faith-based organizations as well for their large congregations and community buy-in and engagement. They have already begun doing this as well, starting with a Q&A at the Pilgrim Baptist Church and planning to continue and expand this avenue for tricking Chicagoans into endorsing the facility.
What You Can Do To Stop IQMP
Our immediate next steps include isolating IQMP and building out a solid foundation of community infrastructure that we can rely on to launch strong and strategic offensive campaigns against IQMP.
Isolating IQMP means denying the facility of any support from the working-class people who live in this city. It means that you tell your loved ones and local communities about the danger that the IQMP poses to us and people globally. It means that if you work in or have children attending CPS schools that you contact us or Black Alliance for Peace-Chicago to join the campaign to demilitarize CPS, leaving IQMP and JROTC with zero students in their programs and creating alternative youth programming outside of CPS that actually benefits our communities and the world and promotes positive individual development and collective freedom and justice.
It means that we build a culture in Chicago of being vehemently opposed to the quantum campus, boycotting it wherever it shows up in our daily lives and counteracting all of its efforts to get the consent and buy-in or even neutrality of Chicagoans. If we have this culture firmly in place, it’ll make later agitation and action against the facility’s stakeholders more effective and harder for them to neutralize because whatever actions are undertaken against the facility will have popular support, backing from thousands of people. And those people, people like you and your loved ones and neighbors, are the ones with the real power.
We are also calling on you to get involved with and support our various programs for working-class community sovereignty and self-determination. These programs include our growing DAPS decolonial study group and free social services/basic needs infrastructure, which has so far entailed free weekly distributions of clothing and hygiene supplies to people in South Shore. We are in the process of building out more extensive social services programming as well, which will include free food, free healthcare and free education. You can volunteer at our distributions, lend your skills/expertise, connect us with organizations (churches, food banks, mutual aid organizations, etc.) that can consistently provide us resources and support, donate items yourself, and raise funds for us to continue these programs. No contribution is too small. If you are interested in volunteering at our weekly resource distributions in South Shore, specifically, contact us to study alongside DAPS members and other prospective volunteers as attending and participating in study sessions is a prerequisite for volunteering with us on the ground. We will be studying the work, lives, theories, and writing of past and current revolutionaries and other writing produced during or about past and ongoing resistance movements against Western imperialism, capitalism, colonialism and slavery. We do not aim to indoctrinate anyone or force a specific ideology onto our volunteers, but we do see the importance in supporting volunteers in increasing their awareness of some of the different tools and lenses they can use to analyze the conditions of the world around them and identify solutions to the problems their communities and the broader world are facing.
We see the U.S., Illinois and Chicago governments’ manufacturing of resource scarcity in South Shore, and throughout the South Side, as a crucial element of the state’s war on Black people as it is meant to slowly kill through the deprivation and starvation of people’s basic needs going continuously unmet. Just like with the Black Panther Party’s survival pending revolution programs, we aim to take our goals of resistance and liberation seriously. Our free social programs aim to meet the needs of the people, combatting the violence of the state’s manufactured resource scarcity. We also understand that we can not be relying on the same government for our basic needs that is enacting violence against us and the broader world, the same government that we are aiming to fight against in a Stop Quantum Campus Campaign and any campaign against U.S. and zionist militarism more broadly. Our free social programs will be our foundation for eventual independence from the U.S., Illinois and Chicago governments. We need this autonomy from the state and self-reliance amongst the people in order to wage the next phases of our struggle against the quantum facility and all other bases for the state’s violence against oppressed people in and outside the U.S. FREE THA LAND! RESIST QUANTUM EXPERIMENTATION ON BLACK AND BROWN PEOPLES ON INDIGENOUS LAND!
Contact DAPS on Instagram, @daps4thaland, or by emailing us at [email protected] to join our campaign against the facility and get involved in our work more broadly.
