Qolab Inc., a developer of quantum computing hardware, announced that its co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, John M. Martinis, has been awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. The award, shared with John Clarke and Michel H. Devoret, recognizes their pioneering experiments demonstrating macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy quantization in electrical circuits.
Using superconducting circuits with Josephson junctions, the trio showed that an electrical circuit can act as a single quantum entity, exhibiting phenomena such as tunneling through energy barriers and discrete energy levels. Their work provided tangible evidence that quantum effects can be observed in systems large enough to hold in one’s hand, laying the foundation for today’s superconducting qubit technologies.
“We are deeply honored that John’s work has received this level of recognition,” said Alan Ho, CEO of Qolab. “He is an outstanding scientist and collaborator. With his leadership, Qolab has built strong semiconductor partnerships and tackled some of the toughest challenges in developing superconducting systems. This Nobel Prize affirms the significance of our shared mission toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.”
John Martinis is renowned for his contributions to quantum computing, particularly in superconducting qubits, and played a key role in developing high-fidelity qubits critical for scalable quantum processors. Before founding Qolab, Martinis led Google’s quantum hardware team that demonstrated quantum supremacy, achieving a computational milestone beyond the reach of the world’s most powerful classical supercomputers.
