Physics breakthrough of 2024 awarded to quantum computing innovators

The annual prize for the Physics Breakthrough of the Year has been awarded today to scientists working at the cutting-edge of quantum computing. 

After drawing up a shortlist of 10 landmark discoveries for the year, the editorial team at Physics World has put two teams working on quantum computing in joint first place.

The first award goes to Mikhail Lukin and Dolev Bluvstein, along with colleagues at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and QuEra Computing. And a second, independently, has been given to Hartmut Neven and colleagues at Google Quantum AI.

Both teams have been working on quantum error correction, a crucial step in demonstrating that the technology can be made to work in real-world settings. Correcting errors caused by interactions with the environment has been described as the ‘defining challenge’ for quantum.

The two teams, working with very different quantum systems, have both taken significant steps towards overcoming this challenge.

Following the announcement, Physics World editor-in-chief Matin Durrani said: “An important feature of the award is that the two winners have done very complementary experimental work in quantum error correction.

“I want to congratulate everyone involved, which moves us all closer to a day when quantum computers will become practical problem-solving machines, not just noisy, intermediate-scale tools for scientific research.

“The Harvard team has shown that a large number of logical qubits (48) can be integrated in a processor that can do logical operations – previously only a handful of logical qubits have been integrated.

“The Google team has shown that increasing the number of physical qubits in a logical qubit can lead to an exponential decrease in the error rate.

“These may feel like quite technical advances, but they are incredibly significant and worthy, joint winners, of our Breakthrough of the Year.”

The two quantum winners are part of the Physics World Top 10 Breakthroughs of the Year for 2024, announced last week, which included research in nuclear and medical physics, quantum computing, lasers, antimatter and more.

The full list of the top 10 can be viewed on the Physics World website.