What Chicago and the Midwest actually run on
Boston has biotech. The Bay Area has consumer software. Chicago and the Midwest run the physical economy, the grid, the water, the manufacturing, the rail, the agriculture, the chemicals. Almost all of it depends on RSA, ECDH, and ECDSA cryptography that becomes recoverable the day a cryptographically-relevant quantum computer (CRQC) ships.
That is not a 2030 problem. Adversaries are already storing encrypted SCADA traffic today under the harvest-now-decrypt-later model. The 2026 to 2030 window is when Midwest utilities, manufacturers, and water authorities need to start the firmware-rotation cycles that finish before the CRQC arrives.
The local critical-infrastructure footprint
A non-exhaustive map of why this matters here:
- Grid, ComEd, Exelon, MISO Midcontinent ISO. RSA-secured field devices, smart meters, substation automation.
- Water and waste-water, City of Chicago Department of Water Management, MWRD, suburban authorities. SCADA modernisation underway, PQC not yet on the roadmap.
- Oil and gas pipelines, Enbridge Mainline, BP Whiting, Marathon. ICS networks operating on equipment with 20-year lifecycles.
- Manufacturing, Caterpillar, John Deere, Boeing, Motorola Solutions, Abbott, Baxter International, Kraft Heinz. Deeply embedded OT, slow procurement.
- Agriculture and food, ADM, Conagra, Tyson Foods plants across the Midwest. IoT instrumentation accelerating, cryptographic posture lagging.
- Logistics and rail, Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, the Chicago intermodal hub.
The Chicago quantum ecosystem from the security side
Most of the visible Chicago quantum work is positive (algorithms, hardware, error-correction). The defensive side, what to do when those algorithms run, is less covered. This is the gap I work in.
- Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) anchors the local ecosystem with Argonne National Laboratory, Fermilab, the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Chicago.
- Argonne National Laboratory hosts foundational quantum research and the IBM Quantum Hub. My IEEE Trans. Quantum Engineering reviewer invitation came through Dr. Joaquin Chung at Argonne.
- Illinois Tech (IIT), DePaul University, and UIC contribute on the cybersecurity side, including notable PQC work from Prof. D. J. Bernstein at UIC.
- InfraGard Chicago and the IEEE Chicago Section bridge the standards-and-utility-engineer audience.
What I work on locally
My active engagements involving the Midwest:
- IEEE Trans. Quantum Engineering review work, by invitation from Argonne National Laboratory.
- Anomaly detection on industrial control system testbeds (SWaT, HAI), with quantum kernel feature maps validated on IBM's 156-qubit ibm_fez NISQ processor.
- NIST FIPS 203 (Kyber/ML-KEM) and FIPS 204 (Dilithium/ML-DSA) implementation for Arduino-class IoT, the kind of constrained device you find in metering, building automation, and field telemetry.
- ISA99 contributions to ISA/IEC 62443 cybersecurity for industrial automation and control systems, the standard most Midwest plants reference.
How to engage
If you are an editor at Crain's Chicago Business, WBEZ, the Chicago Tribune, or any Midwest trade outlet, the press kit has pre-cleared quotes on PQC migration, harvest-now-decrypt-later, and ICS security. If you run a Chicago meetup, IEEE chapter, or InfraGard event and want a talk, the speaking page lists topics. If you are at a Midwest university and want a guest lecture, the contact page routes via the [SPEAKING] subject line.