From Crain’s Chicago Business, Aug. 26, 2020: Chicago’s two national laboratories, Fermilab and Argonne, have been picked to lead national research centers for quantum computing that will receive $115 million each over the next five years. Fermilab will lead the Superconducting Quantum
Materials and Systems Center, which will take on one of the main problems of quantum technology: the length of time that a qubit, the basic element of a quantum computer, can maintain information.
Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center
Fermilab has been selected to lead one of five national centers to bring about transformational advances in quantum information science as a part of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. The initiative provides the new Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center — based at Fermilab and comprising 20 partner institutions — $115 million over five years with the goal of building and deploying a beyond-state-of-the-art quantum computer based on superconducting technologies. The center will also develop new quantum sensors, which could lead to the discovery of the nature of dark matter and other elusive subatomic particles.