Since January, I’ve been sitting down with the people shaping Chicago for a series called Chicago Futurist.

Founders. Operators. Researchers. Scientists. Execs.

I’ve started putting those sit-downs on YouTube. More are coming, including leaders you rarely get to hear from this directly.

If you want them on your feed: youtube.com/@landonsloop. Subscribe so you don’t miss the next one.

Chicago’s Tempus received an ARPA-H award of up to $9.5M to expand olivia, it’s personal AI, into a patient-facing agent for heart-failure care. The bet is continuous monitoring off EHR and home heart-rate data, then escalate to a clinician when something actually moves. The money will fund product work.

ARPA-H’s broader ADVOCATE program is up to about $63M over four years. The goal is FDA-authorized clinical AI that can sit on a care team 24/7. Tempus still has to build, validate, and clear that bar.

More than 6 million Americans live with heart failure. Less than a quarter get full guideline care. Nearly half of US counties don’t have a practicing cardiologist.

SF-based investment firm GI Partners bought a data center facility in Elk Grove Village for $750M. It’s the same corridor where GI already owns major stakes in Digital Realty’s Elk Grove campus.

Public records put this among the biggest local tech real estate buys this year.

Same week, Lake County voted a temporary ban on new data centers in unincorporated areas through May 2027 while it writes rules.

That pause doesn’t stop projects inside municipalities like this one.

Illinois Families for Public Schools got 24 candidates on the ballot to sign a pledge for a three-year moratorium on AI in CPS, plus screen-time limits, a chief privacy officer, and tighter biometric rules.

CPS says it isn’t installing chatbots on every high school Chromebook. Officials say an “aspirational” Gemini plan was halted in May to focus on school readiness and teacher training.

The board race is becoming a referendum on whether or not this happens.

Chicago State stood up CQuEST, an authorized quantum education, science, and technology center on the South Side. It pulls together pathways like a quantum info minor and certificate and a semiconductor technology and manufacturing certificate.

Students get priority access to the nearby Illinois Quantum & Microelectronics Park, paid internships, and pipelines into labs and industry.

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