Illinois is making its giant bet on quantum computing on the Far South Side of Chicago at the former U.S. Steel South Works plant on Lake Michigan, hoping to turn a symbol of Rust Belt decline into high-tech prosperity while reinvigorating a part of the city that has struggled for years to attract investment and jobs.

The state, along with research and corporate partners, chose the former steel mill over a former refinery in Lockport for a 128-acre campus that will be anchored by PsiQuantum, a Silicon Valley startup with ambitious plans to build the world’s largest quantum computer.

As Chicago’s convention schedule has waxed and waned in recent years, one event has remained rock solid on the McCormick Place calendar: the International Manufacturing Technology Show, held every other year in late summer. This year’s edition runs Sept. 9 to 14, with nearly 2,000 exhibitors laid out over 1.3 million square feet and more than 100,000 visitors expected to attend. 

Outside of the annual Chicago Auto Show, which is held each February with attendance of more than 500,000, the IMTS, which is limited to a private audience of manufacturers shopping for machine tools, is the biggest event held at McCormick. In fact, it’s almost certainly the second-biggest business convention held in the United States, trailing only the Consumer Electronics Show, which attracted 139,000 people in January in Las Vegas. In the world of machine tools, the Chicago event competes evenly with a big show called EMO held in odd-numbered years in Hanover, Germany.