Consulting giant Accenture has opened a new space at Chicago’s manufacturing incubator mHub to help its clients build high-tech products.
The new space, called the “Forge,” is part of Accenture’s Industry X.0 initiative, a program that helps organizations in a number of industries use advanced digital tech to reinvent and build products, services and business models.
Accenture held a grand opening event Oct. 17, where Shivani Vora, Accenture’s innovation hub director, and Craig McNeil, Accenture’s North American Industry X.0 lead, introduced guests to the space.
Accenture has Forge studios in Columbus, Ohio; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Des Moines, Iowa; and Jefferson, Iowa. The company says it is planning to build additional Forge locations across the U.S. and Asia within the next year.
The Forge is the latest announcement in a busy year for Accenture in Chicago. Over the summer, the company revealed plans to add 600 high-skilled tech jobs in Chicago by 2022. The new jobs will be centralized out of a new office tower Accenture is building in the West Loop.
Both the new office tower and the Forge are expansions of Accenture’s Chicago innovation center, which the company opened at 500 W. Madison three years ago.
Accenture has long worked with mHub and other local startup incubators, such as 1871 and MATTER, and also contributes to P33, an initiative spearheaded by Penny Pritzker and Chris Gladwin to turn Chicago into a top-tier tech hub.
