News
A public-private partnership with a mission of increasing Indiana’s competitiveness on the global market has utilized one of the state’s most traveled highways to create a quantum crossroads in the Midwest.
Work on the rehabilitation of a 113-mile stretch of the Indiana Toll Road has made for a smoother ride behind the wheel and while surfing the internet thanks to new fiber-optic cabling that one public-private partnership has stated will be a game changer for Northern Indiana.
Quantum Corridor, a partnership that was forged by Chicago-area entrepreneurs, has used the well-known Indiana Toll Road to build out their network, which runs from Chicago to Purdue University. The network has the intent of creating an information-sharing platform for academic institutions, scientific facilities, and defense contractors, according to Quantum Corridor’s website.
H.W. Lochner Inc., which has managed planning and design for the Indiana Toll Road upgrades, provided management services, design oversight, and construction oversight for the installation of the fiber-optic cable, which the company described in a Jan. 11 release about the next phase of the toll road project.
Quantum Corridor launched the network in October 2023, days after the Biden Administration designated the area as a U.S. Regional Technology and Innovation Hub.
At the time, Quantum Corridor’s President and Chief Technology Officer Ryan Lafler said what the Quantum Corridor partnership has accomplished has not been replicated anywhere else in North America.
“The nearly instantaneous communication that quantum networking provides will support every industry in the United States by enabling them to work more efficiently, safely and securely,” he said. “This will expedite the evolution of the internet and has the potential to increase our nation’s competitiveness at a time when it has dropped significantly in many of the world’s most important rankings.”
The Bloch Tech Hub, as it’s named, seeks to leverage Chicago’s universities, labs, and commercial facilities to “increase industry access to shared-use quantum facilities and hardware to meet industry needs and generate good-paying jobs,” according to the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s website.
According to Quantum Corridor, the network connects to the Chicago Quantum Exchange at the University of Chicago. The network then runs south and east along the Indiana Toll Road to Westville, Indiana, near Purdue University’s Northwest Campus.
The network will also connect West Lafayette, Indiana, the partnership’s announcement said in a description of the network’s 263-mile path.
According to the partnership, it is the first network in North America to achieve a capacity of 40 terabits per second.
C1, an IT consulting firm, was described as “monumental” to the project by the Quantum Corridor partnership, which said the firm assisted with engineering.
When the network was launched, C1 Chief Revenue Officer John DeLozier said the network is a significant step to bridging the local digital divide.
“Quantum Corridor will traverse many Northwest Indiana counties with underserved communities,” he said. “We’re set to unleash the power of connected experiences, creating numerous job opportunities and driving local economic development.”
