Seminar Overview: 

Over the past four decades, quantum computation has transformed from a conceptual framework into a rapidly advancing technological frontier.

In this seminar, Professor Martinis will discuss:    

• His groundbreaking thesis work on macroscopic quantum tunneling and energy-level quantization, which led to the 2025 Nobel Prize.

• Key experiments that advanced superconducting qubits, laying the foundation for today’s quantum processors.

• Why achieving a fully scalable quantum system remains challenging, with unresolved issues in hardware, fabrication, architecture, and algorithms.    

• How adapting existing semiconductor processes and applying system engineering approaches could accelerate the path toward large-scale, high-quality quantum computing.

About the Speaker:

John M. Martinis is an American physicist and a 2025 Nobel Laureate in Physics. In 2025, he received the Nobel Prize alongside his doctoral advisor John Clarke and Michel Devoret for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantization in an electric circuit. Martinis is internationally known for his pioneering work on superconducting qubits – the foundation of modern quantum processors. He earned his degrees at UC Berkeley and has held research positions at the CEA in France, NIST, and the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 2014, he joined the Google Quantum AI Lab, contributing to the first demonstration of quantum supremacy. He later worked with Silicon Quantum Computing in Australia and co-founded Qolab, focusing on improving coherence in superconducting qubits for scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing.