Building on its growing Chicago quantum footprint, IBM is planning to open a FutureNow delivery center at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, with a commitment to create 750 new full-time technology jobs on the city’s South Side.

The center, one of a handful scattered across North America, will serve as an IBM innovation hub to solve business and technology challenges for its clients. It also expands the computer giant’s role in developing the state’s nascent quantum ecosystem, while providing a pipeline for Chicago tech talent to launch their careers.

“With this new era of quantum computing upon us, I actually do believe that we are now a couple of years away from this making a profound difference to industry and to people’s lives,” IBM CEO Arvind Krishna said during an announcement Wednesday at Olive-Harvey College. “This is the moment to double down on our cooperation and our investment.”

As part of the program, IBM will participate in a new City Colleges apprenticeship program to support 500 students to work at the innovation center over the next five years. IBM has committed to hire at least 180 apprentice alumni to help reach its employment targets with the state.

Krishna was joined Wednesday by Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, City Colleges leadership and other politicos onstage at Olive-Harvey on the city’s Far South Side, heralding the latest development in the state’s ambitions to become the center of the quantum universe.

“IBM is launching a truly innovative workforce partnership with City Colleges that ensures the benefits of the quantum revolution are felt here and all across the city of Chicago, that everyone in Chicago benefits,” Pritzker said.

The new IBM innovation center was incentivized by tax credits through the state’s Economic Development for a Growing Economy program

Under the terms of the EDGE agreement, IBM commits to adding 750 jobs over the next five years and making an undisclosed but “substantial capital investment” over the term of the IQMP lease to be eligible for more than $19 million in tax credits over 10 years, according to the state.

As part of its investment, IBM’s FutureNow Chicago delivery center will become an anchor tenant at the IQMP’s Quantum Works building, which is expected to be completed by 2028.

In December 2024, IBM and the state announced plans to build the National Quantum Algorithm Center at the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park, a groundbreaking computer research development rising at the former U.S. Steel site on the city’s South Side.

The center will be powered by the IBM Quantum System Two, a modular computer that combines quantum and classical architecture to explore the nearly incalculable advances in technology the new field may bring.

IBM’s quantum computer will be headed to the University of Chicago this fall, and will move to the IQMP center when the building is completed.

The state committed $500 million for the development of the quantum park, including $200 million for the buildout of a shared cryogenic plant needed to keep the quantum computers cool while operating.

IBM’s FutureNow Chicago center will join anchor tenant PsiQuantum, a California-based tech company that announced in 2024 it was investing billions in the new site in a quest to build the world’s first commercially viable quantum computer. The PsiQuantum building is expected to be ready by early 2027.

Earlier this month, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and IBM announced a renewed research partnership focused on quantum technology. The second phase of the 10-year, $200 million IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute will bolster the state’s quantum computing infrastructure and make a second home at the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago, the university’s urban research hub.

The University of Illinois is erecting two buildings at the IQMP campus by 2028.

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