Chicago mayor spars with activists on quantum
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Photo illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios. Photo: Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
After walking out of a tense anti-quantum event Saturday, Mayor Brandon Johnson is attempting to mend fences with progressive South Side activists who attended.
Why it matters: The scene of Johnson being jeered off stage by Black and brown social justice advocates struck a discordant note for a progressive mayor who has long counted these groups as his voter base.
- The confrontation also highlights growing public opposition to new tech developments — whether quantum or data centers — that could play a role in upcoming elections.
Catch up quick: For months, Southside Together urged Johnson to cancel the Quantum Shore permits and attend one of their meetings to hear concerns about rising rents, utility bills, water usage, air quality during soil remediation and a potential data center.
- Saturday, the mayor finally did, joining SST member Lia Terrell onstage, where she asked if the quantum campus squares with his values.
- Without answering directly, Johnson said he's "willing to commit all my resources … to work with this coalition and do what is legally possible to make sure that development that is happening is not happening at the expense of working people."
- Amid boos and jeers, the mayor left the building while Terrell intoned, "If the quantum facilities have the support of the mayor, he has lost the support of the people."
The latest: By Tuesday, SST put out a fence-mending statement on Instagram, saying, "Mayor Johnson committed to the meeting, attended, listened, answered and sat with the tension."
- The post added, "Saturday, Mayor Johnson made the public aware that the Quantum developers have now committed that a data center will no longer be located on the [IQMP] Quantum campus.
- "That is meaningful development and would not happen without…the Mayor asserting his values of protecting the community through his Executive Order on Data Centers."
Reality check: A data center had never even been proposed for the IQMP campus, as affirmed by a letter Johnson's office showed Axios.
- Plus, four days before the Saturday meeting, Johnson told Axios at a news conference that "there is no data center that is part of the development of PsiQuantum."
Additionally: The digital arm of the site's developer, Related Midwest, could still build the enormous 1 gigawatt data center it proposed in 2025, just not right away.
- Related officials told the mayor and The Reader: "Our team is very focused on delivering the first phase of the development, the IQMP, and a data center is not part of that development.”
- Might Related build a data center on the north end of the Quantum Shore site later? Related didn't immediately respond to Axios questions about it.
Between the lines: If Related tries to build the data center, it will face strengthened reviews by city departments and a potential City Council data center moratorium that Johnson endorsed as part of a recent executive order.
- For his part, SST executive director Dixon Romeo tells Axios that he appreciates Johnson's order and assurances, but "we're not gonna stop. We are trying to stop the development of the data center and the quantum facility…the people in the community do not want this."
- "Those concerns deserve to be heard and considered, and the intensity with which residents expressed them underscores why the Mayor believed it was important to be in the room," Johnson's office told Axios in a statement.
The other side: Axios also talked to community members who support the quantum development.
What we're watching: How Chicago's quantum fights play out in the midterm and municipal elections.