In her address to participants, The Hon. Vanessa Chan highlighted the Indiana-Illinois Innovation Corridor's potential to tackle national challenges in bioscience and clean energy. While discussing the importance of the crucial innovations in “Chips, Qubits, and Molecules” coming out of the region, Chan stressed the need to ensure these technologies are also commercially deployed.
For Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the Office of Technology Transitions in the U.S. Department of Energy The Hon. Vanessa Chan, the Indiana-Illinois Innovation Corridor is one of the most promising emerging ecosystems in the country with the potential to tackle national challenges in bioscience, advanced computing, and clean energy. Investments and innovations being made here have the potential to fundamentally transform the region's economy while simultaneously benefitting the whole United States.
Chan emphasized the vulnerable state of the American microelectronics supply , pointing out that “as of 2023, only 47 percent of R&D, 27 percent of design, 12 percent of front-end fabrication, and less than 2 percent of assembly, test, and packaging occurred in the U.S.” She described these statistics as “sobering,” but positioned them as an opportunity for innovation and growth. An opportunity the Indiana-Illinois region is seizing, with collaborations between universities, laboratories, and the private sector dovetailing with significant investment to grow a new mecca of semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.
Relaying her personal passion for quantum computing, Chan highlighted how the DOE is advancing the technology towards wider deployment. Five quantum innovation science centers, with $625 million in funding, are doing basic and applied research on superconducting quantum materials and how to network quantum computers. Two of these centers are in the Midwest, at Argonne National Laboratory and Fermilab, ready to take advantage of partnerships with leading university quantum research programs at Purdue, the University of Illinois, and others to bolster the growing quantum ecosystem in the Midwest. By focusing on the commercialization of quantum science, these centers will soon be changing the way industry across the region, the country, and the world compute.
All of this is a part of the DOE’s larger focus on commercialization and technology transfer, taking science from the laboratory to commercial and industrial users. Chief among the strategies to achieve this is de-risking technologies through federal investment, as Chan made clear, “the government does have a lot of money, but it pales in comparison to the trillions of dollars that the private sector has.”
Much of this work has been accomplished by leveraging the legislative frameworks passed in the past few years, namely the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. These laws gave the DOE a wider mandate and greater resources for the demonstration and deployment of new technologies, giving them the bandwidth to cover the entire commercialization process, from research to development, demonstration, and deployment.
As an example, Chan highlighted the DOE’s innovative approach to catalyzing demand for hydrogen, detailing how a billion dollars of funding aims to create mechanisms for guaranteed pricing to reduce risks for early adopters. Those willing to take the first steps to adopt hydrogen face higher risks, so to encourage early adoption, DOE support was crucial. The Midwest's hydrogen hub, one of seven clean hydrogen hubs selected nationally, is expected to produce hydrogen from renewable and low-cost energy sources. This initiative anticipates creating 13,600 jobs, including 12,100 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs. But beyond the immediate economic effects, the DOE investment has spurred the beginnings of a hydrogen supply chain, something that will be crucial to implement before most investors are comfortable betting big on hydrogen as a viable energy source for tomorrow.
As important as building new commercial ecosystems is creating the workforce needed to supply them. Chan highlighted the DOE’s efforts to create and engage with the next generation of innovators through initiatives like university prizes, offering an incentive for students to pursue new ideas. In one case, a University of Rochester team was able to secure seed funding for a low-carbon-cement startup due to the DOE’s initial support, showing how small early investments can pay future dividends.
In the final points of her address, Chan emphasized the necessity of understanding market needs rather than solely focusing on technology development. To facilitate this understanding, she introduced the concept of Adoption Readiness Levels (ARLs), a framework designed to address factors beyond technology risk that impact commercialization, such as cost, supply chain, and community acceptance. She urged the audience to familiarize themselves with ARLs, encouraging them to consider the broader market implications of their research as they move from basic science towards a product for the wider world. Chan’s keynote underscored the pivotal role of government support in fostering an ecosystem conducive to the growth of emerging technologies, ultimately aiming to enhance the economic viability of regions like Indiana and Illinois in the evolving landscape of innovation.