Nobel Prize in Physics Winner: The Quantum Leap That Changed Everything - John Martinis

Welcome. Today uh I'm very excited for. this all-in interview with this week's. Nobel laureate, winner of the Nobel. Prize in physics in 2025, John Martinez. John, welcome to the all-in interview. >> Yeah, thanks for inviting me. Um I'm. quite excited about this uh this talk. and uh you know, love to explain to. people about you know, what this prize. is all about. >> All right, besties. I think that was. another epic discussion. People love the. interviews. I could hear him talk for.

hours. Absolutely. Oh, he crushed your. questions in a minute. >> We are giving people ground truth data. to underwrite your own opinion. What did. you guys think? That was fun. That was. great. [Music]. >> Well, the Nobel Prize is the most. prestigious honor and particularly in. physics that I think can be awarded. You're in the record books. It's going. to be an incredible ceremony coming up. for you. Maybe we could go back to the. beginning in your history. I'd love to. hear a little bit about, you know, where. did you grow up and how did you get.

started with your interest in physics? >> Uh, well, so I uh I grew up in San. Pedro, California, and uh, you know, grew up there my whole time. My my. father was a fireman and my mom stayed. at home, took care of us, and um, you. know, through the years I was always. interested in science, technology. I'm. going to say one of the things is, you. know, my my dad, you know, actually. didn't have a high school education, but. very smart person. He was always.

building things in the garage, various. projects. So, I grew up kind of knowing. how to build things, which also kind of. tells you how things work, you know, kind of empirical view, you know, tactical view of how physics works. So. uh when I took physics in high school, I. actually loved it because there was. actually some math behind it and. concepts and you know really made sense. to me and uh you know I I just really. you know fell in love with the subject. and then went to UC Berkeley and and did.

pretty well there and enjoyed it. Uh. enjoyed it a lot. And then in my senior. year at UC Berkeley I had a class from. John Clark who was my adviser and found. out what he was doing. and he was just. starting to look at these quantum. mechanics and electrical devices stuff. and it sounded really interesting for. me. I guess I have, you know, I guess I. could see maybe when something maybe. would would take off. So I started to to.

uh to to do the graduate school work. with him. >> You went to Berkeley for graduate. school. >> I went to Gertie for graduate school, which you're not supposed to do. >> I was originally a physics and math. undergrad at Cal. >> Okay. I changed my major later and. actually got my degree in astrophysics. There was some upper division math class. that really turned me off to math as a. major. There was just so many proofs. It. drove me nuts. >> Right. Right. >> And then physics was always exciting, but I liked uh working in the astro lab.

and I worked actually at Lawrence. Berkeley Lab. >> Oh, okay. Yeah. >> But then you you stayed at Berkeley and. went to grad school, right? >> Yeah, I stayed at Berkeley, went to grad. school. We started this project a couple. years into grad school. I forget exact. date. And what was interesting is this. was a question that was actually posed. by professor Anthony Leget who won the. Nobel Prize for you know helium 3 you. know physics uh in I think 20 2003. >> was that super fluid.

>> super fluid helium 3. Yeah that's right. >> So he showed like if you put helium 3. cold enough it kind of almost has this. new sort of characteristic with the. physics and how it moves and how it. works. Well, it has a this super fluid. behavior, but it has a very complicated. behavior because of the more complicated. nuclei of the helium 3. And. >> this had been discovered and people. worked for a while to figure that out. And he, you know, helped develop the. theory for that. So, he was quite. wellknown, very, very smart person. And.

although he won the Nobel Prize for. that, okay, there's not much helium 3. physics going on, but for the question. that led to our experiment, okay, there's a huge field. And the question. was, do macroscopic. objects behave quantum mechanically? Okay, and this is a macroscopic object. might be a small ball. In our case, it's. an electrical circuit with billions of.

electrons in it, billions of atom and is. the collective motion of say the ball uh. quantum mechanical. Now, you know, if. you think about throwing throwing a ball. against the wall, it's going to bounce. off. But if you make the wall thin. enough and the ball light enough, it'll. then every once in a while tunnel. through because of the, you know, laws. of quantum mechanics. So, um. >> hold on, let's just pause on that for a. second. And I think that's really worth. spending a moment on. >> Yeah. Great. >> So when we talk about quantum mechanics,

when we talk about the relative position. or energy or movement of a particle at. the atomic scale as small as an atom or. smaller than an atom, we have to use. kind of probabilities to describe where. things are going to be. That was what. was really kind of the big understanding. of quantum mechanics in the early 20th. century, right? is that there's. >> the probability of things being where. they are and moving as they're moving.

there. It's not like like deterministic. like we can see with the ball that we. throw around. When you get very very. small things get very fuzzy and it's. very hard. >> So you hit upon upon the key idea here. maybe by accident but it's very. important. Quantum mechanics was. developed for the theory of small. things. You know, electrons, atoms, you. know, things things that are that are. the the fundamental constituents of it, but very small. And um you know, if you.

take an atom, it's made from electron. and a nucleus. You know, classically, they attract each other and they would. just, you know, combine together and. then atoms basically would have no size. Why do atoms have size? Okay, that you. know that that was one of the the. strange things and it's because this. atom is kind of not a a point particle. I used to say to my kids that the. electrons were fuzzy. Okay. And and.

quantum mechanically it has some wave. function and extended. You can think of. the electrons being all around the. nucleus at the same time. So um it it's. just a very strange behavior u but of. small things uh and of course very. important as how atoms work and how we. describe nature. So quantum mechanics. ultimately became a field that people. say is very non-intuitive in terms of. understanding where small small.

particles are, the energy they have, where they're moving to and and. basically we resolved to figuring out. that we had to use these functions. It's. not just a single point, but it's a. distribution. It's a whole bunch of. places and there's a probability of. where the atom could be or where the. electron could be. It's also a. probability of how fast it might be. moving. All of these things become. probability functions. >> And you develop a mathematical theory. for doing this that you know takes you.

until your third year in university to. really know enough math to understand. that. But basically that's right. >> these are forming waves waves of the. electron. So you have kind of a wave and. electron around the nucleus describing. what the uh the electrons are. And these. are kind of like standing waves, you. know, it's like hitting a string. Uh, you know, if if different length. strings, different tension strings form. different notes, these vibrations of the.

electrons around the atom can vibrate at. different frequencies. >> So rather than think about an electron. moving around an atom in a predescribed. path and I can know where it is at any. point in time, the right way to think. about an electron around an atom is it's. in a wave. It's a and it's it's a long. there's a wave that describes kind of. where it is and it's doing. >> and you have the electron and you have. the proton. attracting it. So the whole wave theory. combines all those two and you know.

gives you a description of how the the. atom works and quite accurate. description too. And so one of the other. kind of features that arises from the. fact that everything at a micro scale is. described by wave functions is that. there's a small probability of something. kind of extreme or extraordinary. happening. Like the one example is. Stephen Hawking figured out that you. could have a particle and antiparticle. come out of nowhere in the middle of. space and the antiarticle goes into the.

black hole. The particle shoots off. >> Yeah. And that the probability of that. happening is so low, but it happens. enough that the antiparticle actually. starts to delete part of a black hole. And that's how black holes evaporate and. this. >> theory all these interesting things. But. can you tell us how what quantum. tunneling is? So this is another one of. these sort of features of quantum. mechanics that arises from the fact that. these things are kind of waves and. probability functions. >> Yeah. So if if you have um if you have. an electron just traveling through space.

hitting hitting a wall let's say there's. a little wave wave packet wave function. to it. So it's not a single particle. It. has some extent to it. And what happens. is that when that particle hits the. wall, quantum mechanics say there is some. amount small amount of this wave. function or if you like the particle. going through the wall and then to the. other side. >> Now most of the time it uh it bounces.

off but every once in a while it goes. through. And you know this is seen in um. uh everyday devices. This is not and as. if you build very small um memory. circuit you have to worry about. electrons tunneling and charge leaking. off your capacitor. Uh they have. magnetic memories that depend on these. tunnel junctions. So this is a very. well-known phenomenon and if you make. the this barrier this insulator just you.

know 10 20 atoms thick then that's thin. enough for it to go through. >> to go through. So this is what's so. interesting. Um you can actually predict. the number of electrons that might. tunnel through one of these barriers one. of these insulating barriers as they're. called over to the other side which. really is crazy to think about. It's. just like walking through walls, right? I mean, >> yeah, that's that's the idea. >> Yeah. So, going back to the story you. were sharing, you're in grad school, >> right? >> And then Leot proposes this idea. Maybe.

you can share a little bit more now that. we've got I think a bit of the basics on. what was discussed, which was. >> zooming out a bit like rather than just. think about all of this happening at a. microscopic scale, is it possible for it. to happen at a bigger scale? >> Yeah. And again we've been talking about. quantum mechanics is the physics nature. at this microscopic atomic scale but the. question was if you made a macroscopic. object would it obey quantum mechanics. also okay and then you know that was the.

basic question and it turns out that. there's a very natural system to look at. looking at an electrical system and look. seeing for quantum mechanics an. electrical system where the currents and. voltages of essentially electrical. oscillator does it behave like a. classical physics or does it behave with. this quantum mechanical nature to it? And that was the question. Now it turns. out that when you think about quantum.

mechanics and thinking about well. there's the quantum behavior but then at. some point you have to measure it which. then turns it into a probability. There's something called the Schroinger. pat cat paradox where um in the paradox. you have your radioactive decay and then. you you you. let it happen for let's say half of the. radioactive decay time and then you say. and then the in you have a ready.

detected decay a detector and then a. bottle of cyanide which will kill a cat. and then do you say you know after some. amount of time is the cat in the dead in. the live state. Okay. And you know, physicists, you know, and this is this. good question. Einstein brought brought. it up or Shoner brought it up. A lot of. people uh discussed it. Uh but Alleged. pointed out that the reason this is a. paradox is you can believe that a.

macroscopic object like a cat could be. in a quantum superposition state. And in. fact, there was no experime experimental. evidence that this could happen. And. that was his point. So um so he said. well you know people should be testing. this and let's see if it's true and uh. as a as a young graduate student who. just you know learned about quantum. mechanics and it's like oh that's a. really great great question that's. something that we should try to do and.

we should try to do an experiment you. know on on the suggested system uh to. look for quantum mechanics. And the the. original proposal was looking for the. tunneling. Well, it turned out to be. more than that, but uh the it look for. tunneling. >> Let me just kind of describe another way. is you know the macroscopic system could. be my entire body. Could I walk through. a wall? >> That's right. And then the probability. of all of my atoms being in the perfect.

moment, perfect position, you know, to. to be able to kind of cross through the. wall is so low, it would never happen in. this or many other universes of. >> and and that's the problem is that most. macroscopic objects when you try to. think about the quantum mechanics that. won't happen. Okay. So, >> right. There's a small probability one. electron can cross over a barrier, >> but the probability that many cross over. at once is lower and lower and lower and. that makes it very difficult to see at.

scale. And what what happens is if you. look at an electrical circuit then the. parameters become favorable for seeing. this kind of macroscopic behavior. And. okay, it's hard to go into the the whole. physics of all that, but it's basically. because you can make a circuit that. operates at microwave frequencies. So. instead of you trying to go through the. wall once a second, it tries to go. through the wall five billion times a. second. Okay. So then it's it's a lot,

you know, more you know, you have more. chances to go through. And uh uh the. other thing is the just the various. parameters that involved in quantum. mechanics you know are favorable for. seeing this kind of phenomena. You have. to do the experiment right but uh it's. favorable for doing that. >> So one of the parts of your experiment. you created what's called a Josephson. junction. Is that is that correct? So. this is two superconductors with a. barrier between them. Right. I got.

really fascinated by superconductors. when I was maybe 12 years old. I I went. and bought a superc conducting disc etum. berium copper oxide. Yes, that's right. >> From the back of Popular Science and. then I went to UCLA and I got a a jug of. liquid nitrogen. >> and then I floated a magnet above the. disc. >> because of the Meisner effect and I had. it at the science fair and I and I did. very well with the science fair that. year because I showed this really. >> What year was that? Was that when it was. discovered? >> Must have been 919.

>> Okay. Yeah, that was close enough that. that was good. Yeah, the hard part is. getting the liquid nitrogen. But. >> yeah, and I had a friend whose dad was. like a doctor at UCLA or something like. that, so he was able to get the liquid. nitrogen for our demonstration. >> Right. Yeah, that that was the hard. part. Okay. >> I've always been fascinated by the. physics of superconductors and maybe you. can just explain one of these important. features of the of superconductors as it. relates to kind of resistance and. current flow and then we can talk about. your experiment.

So, so what happens is um when a a. material goes superconducting. all the electrons condense into one. state. Okay. Now to just to give you. analogy of how it's not perfect analogy. it's close analogy. If you have a normal. metal any metal we have at room. temperature it's like a gas of. electrons. It's like you know gas in the. air. And then when you get below the. superconducting temperature.

>> Sorry, I think we should just explain. that. So, so you have a metal all the. electrons are kind of moving around. They're they're perturbed. They're all. different energies, different states. That's right. Different energies, different states. You know, there's some. firm statistics. Not go into that, but. it's more or less looks like a gas. You. think of a of a gas and then when you. cool it below you know a certain. temperature it then coaleses into let's. say a solid like like atoms will and the.

electrons coales into the something. cooper cooper pair bcs condenset is the. name where all the electrons are kind of. locked together and doing the same. thing. Now the nice thing about that. it's not like they're frozen in place. but they have a free parameter that. allows them all the currents all the. electrons to flow in some direction. which is the supercurren. >> in a superconductor meaning a material. that's cool enough that it reaches its.

superconducting critical temperature. Right? So suddenly all the electrons can. still move. They can still create a. current, but. >> but they're they're moving together like. they're in like in my analogy like. they're in a solid instead of the gas. >> And because they're moving together, >> okay, then then when you work through. all the physics, they are not um you. know, they aren't randomly scattering. off things. They're just moving. together. And then you get a supercurren. where for example if you made a ring a.

superconductor superconductor that. current would basically flow for forever. around the ring. This is what you saw. with the floating magnet. >> Right. That's so interesting. I've. always uh thought and there's obviously. been companies started around the idea. of creating an infinite battery where. you could store technically forever. electricity because the electrons are. just moving around. If it's. superconducting it can they can just. spin forever around that circuit. And. people actually do use big. superconducting magnets to store energy.

And when you get an MRI that you're in a. you're in a liquid helium machine with a. a superconducting magnet, they charge it. up and that magnetic field is basically. there forever. Uh you know, waiting for. people to to go inside it. It it's kind. of strange to be in you're inside this. super cold magnet there. But they've. designed it very well. Works well. So. this Josephson junction is two. superconductors. They're on either side. of a barrier that you create, an.

insulating barrier. And then maybe just. explain the experiment and and what you. guys measured. >> And this this was all while you were in. grad school, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. And and uh and this is this. Jose junction because the Cooper pairs. have to tunnel through it, but they kind. of tunnel through it together without. any loss. This this actually forms. what's called an electrical inductor in. circuit in circuits. So an inductor is. normally a a coil of wire that stores.

energy and its magnetic field. Here this. this just stores energy of the electrons. tunneling through here. And so it's a. it's something called we call a kinetic. inductance and it happens with this but. that forms a nonlinear inductance and. with a capacitor in the circuit that. forms an inductor capacitance resonance. circuit which is in your old which is. like in your radios you have filters of.

LC resonance circuits to filter your. signal and do anything. So this is a. very common microwave and uh you know. radio frequency uh element that you use. all the time to make electrical. circuits. >> So I just want to simplify that you have. these two superconductors split by this. barrier. There's some tunneling some of. these electrons are actually going. through the barrier to the other side. and then you can effectively measure all. of these different changes as you change. the temperature. You guys were putting.

different voltage states into this. circuit that you built. And what you saw. and what you measured and what you. demonstrated was that there were these. very kind of discrete or specific. changes that happened that basically. demonstrated quantum mechanics at scale. >> That's right. So, so this inductor. capacitor resonator which you just treat. as a you is a charge and a current going. through but because it's quantum. mechanics there's this wave function to.

it. So there's some uncertainty in these. and then given just the way that the. simple electrical circuit works um uh. you can then demonstrate the quantum. mechanics one of the tunneling which is. a little bit hard to describe here but. you can see tunneling but I think the. little bit easier thing maybe easier is. to look at the energy levels of this and. let me kind of explain that when people. discovered you know atomic physics and.

started doing any doing this they um. excited a gas of of you know some gas. and the light coming out of that gas. would be at certain colors of frequency. So if you go outside and you have the. sodium lamps on, these are kind of the. yellow lamps, you have, you know, kind. of a single frequency coming out of that. lamp. Or nowadays you look at LEDs, there are certain frequencies that come. out of that. And this is a quantum.

mechanical effect that the how the. electrons travel around the atom. There's only certain kind of frequencies. that they oscillate at. Now, classically, you would expect there to. be all different frequencies that it. spirals around or spirals into the. nucleus. So, that's what you expect. But. we saw these discrete frequencies. >> And so, by measuring those discrete. frequencies, you now had proof.

>> that there was quantum mechanics. happening at a macro scale. >> That That's right. >> And you published this work. And was. there a lot of attention when you. published this work? This was in 1985 86. >> Yeah. 85 or I actually forget but 85 or. 86. >> And so was there much attention on this. work at the time? 8. Yeah. This was a. big question and people wanted to you. know understand that and you know we.

published it in physical review letters. and it got a lot of attention and I. think we had a little article in. Scientific American that was very proud. of. >> that wrote about that and uh yeah it it. was you know it was kind of a kind of a. big deal. >> What did you go on to do at that point? Was it considered groundbreaking Nobel. Prize-winning work and what was the. story at that time when this came out? >> Yeah. So, you know, it was an it was an.

important piece of work and people. noticed it, but you know, it it you. know, we we showed that quantum. mechanics worked and quantum mechanics. worked on the macro scale, which was. nice, but one could still, you know, argue, well, what is it good for? What. are you going to do? And the in fact the. secret of an important scientific. breakthrough. is does it lead to other experiments and. other papers and other inventions and. the like and uh that kind of took uh you.

know many decades to happen because it. was so new and people had to do do that. So I would say it was noteworthy at the. time but you know not necessarily you. know something for a Nobel Prize because. it was just kind of you know weird and. went off and you know what are you going. to do with it? >> But what happened at the time was very. interesting and at the end of my thesis. time there was a conference in uh UC.

Santa Barbara where I came here for the. first time. >> Yeah. and uh they they were talking. about this experiment but the very last. day the last talk was by Richard Feman. very well-known physicist. >> of course the greatest yeah. >> the great yeah right you know I kind of. idolized him and and read his his his. books and whatever. >> and he was talking about using quantum. mechanics for computation which is.

building a quantum computer. >> so he gave a talk that was, you know, really kind of amazing. I'm going to be. honest as a student. I I didn't quite. catch everything and my Michelle dev my. dear friend said yeah maybe some of the. things wasn't quite figured out at the. time but afterwards he was absolutely. mobbed by people asking him questions. cuz it's so interesting to think about. taking this this you know basic law and.

actually doing computation with it. >> right. >> and I was a graduate student so I was. kind of at the outside ring you know you. have the professor professors in close. and whatever and I was just a lowly. graduate student so I could hear a. little bit but what I what I learned. from this it was a great question and. and something that would be kind of. worth doing you know for your your life. pro your life work because it's so deep. and so interesting and maybe practical.

and the like so that really motivated me. >> yeah so that big idea is to use quantum. mechanics and these properties of. quantum mechanics to do computing. >> Yeah, that's right. And and I would say. uh uh soon after that other people in. the field got a little bit more specific. and showed how you would how you would. do it. And then it was in the early. 1990s, maybe 5 years later, that Peter.

Shaw came up with this factoring. algorithm to to solve a you know, a real. world problem with it. >> Yeah. And it took a while to people. figure out. It was very abstract and you. know people quite weren't sure what to. do. But but like I said I could see that. in all the the crowd around Fineman. asking them questions that this was the. most you know most interesting. fundamental question you know how to. combine quantum mechanics with doing. computation. It's it's really amazing.

>> And so you started to do that with your. life's work pretty much. you go on to a. very good career. >> Yeah. So my career path um was of course. quantum computing was getting developed. and and it took me a while to really get. go all in on it. Okay. >> Yeah. So um what happened is Michelle. Devare was was from France from CA. France went to Berkeley went back I went. there as a posttock and worked with them.

and they were young and unknown at the. time and people like well you're going. to go to Europe and you're not going to. get connected to US science but I knew. Michelle and Danielle Eststev and. Christian Abino the people I working. with were absolutely brilliant okay and. they've had a very illustrious a career. So I went over there because I knew that. was great. And we continued to do. experiments on this. >> Yeah. >> And then after that I came back to the. US and I worked for the National.

Institute of Standards and Technology. And it turns out just down the hall from. Dave Wland and his group who went a. Nobel Prize for atomic physics for you. know doing quantum computation. And I. worked on some with doing experiments on. counting electrons and working for. metrology and then did other. experiments. And then in late uh the '9s. I I just again went all in on building a. quantum computer. There was funding.

available at that time. It had. progressed enough theoretically that the. US government started you know funding. this to see if people can do it. And so. then couple years after 2014 I think you. ended up at at Google's quantum lab in. Santa Barbara. Is that right? >> I was at UCSB for um 10 years or so. which was wonderful and built up the lab. to go from very basic things to building. a five and then 9 cubit quantum.

computer. And then during that time, Google got interested and I I kind of. decided that although academia was. great, it would be hard to get the team. together and keep them together for a. long time to build this complicated. machine and Google had the money. Okay. >> Yeah. So, so we went there and we. started off fairly small uh mostly from. people coming from my UCSB group and. then in uh 2019.

we published this quantum supremacy. experiment with 53 cubits where we made. a lot of cubits and we made them really. good and you know fast and whatever so. that we could run some algorithm a. mathematical algorithm that um what it. produced some output uh that was took. you know much much longer on a classical. computer to to emulate and do that. It.

was not practical but it was a. demonstration of the power of a quantum. computer. >> that it worked. Well, just maybe give. your description of a cubit and maybe we. can relate, you know, how do we build. these quantum computers from cubits to. the Josephson junction and some of the. early work you had done that you ended. up winning the prize for. >> So very simply, we have a metal wire and. a metal wire that gets put together on. this Joseen junction which represents a.

a an inductor flowing through here. And. then from this wire to this wire, we. have a capacitor. And then we set that up to oscillate at. about 5 GHz cell phone frequencies. Uh uh you know to to form the cubit. Okay, this oscillating thing. And then. there's at low temperatures. superconductors you know all this magic. we can we can get quantum mechanical. behavior out of that.

>> and then you can measure that quantum. mechanical behavior create a. representation and use that to run your. computing. >> That's right. What you can do is you put. on microwave pulses to change the state. of the quantum computer, change the way. it oscillates and then we connect it to. um it's a complicated readout circuitry. uh to you know in the end figure out. what state it's in. >> Okay. And then and then you you connect.

just an array of these and you just use. capacitive coupling from you know one. one wire to the to the next one to to. couple them together and it's more. complicated than that but that gives you. a good idea. >> and then just to understand. your work that you won this Nobel Prize. for that demonstrated this quantum. mechanical phenomena at scale. Is that. part of the design of a cubit and the. circuitry? Did that inform that design.

work or explain it rather? Yeah. >> Yeah. It was the very basic simplest. circuit. uh you know we were using. analog simulators at the time not even. the I took data with a computer but this. is this is far back enough that you know. it was very rudimentary. >> and then over the years we just got more. sophisticated design by the whole field. you know many many people. >> and uh and we were able to put things. together in a way to actually build a.

computer now. >> right. >> the the I would say the reason why It's. interesting from the Nobel Prize thing. is what it led to and what it led to. right now is a thousand maybe several. thousand people around the world doing. research to build this superconducting. quantum computer and and it's just. turned into enormous field large number. of papers large number of people people.

selling quantum computers IBM is selling. quantum computers people are selling. time in the quantum computers and the. fact that it was a it was a useful idea. okay that led and and and brought into. form uh uh all all these different. experiments ideas and many many people. contributed this. >> I mean it's very interesting and I think. just this broad question or observation. that sometimes. inquisitive minds.

leads to research that leads to some set. of discovery that are completely not. apparent until 40 years later. the. effect or the impact it may have had. >> on building an industrial field like. there's now quantum computing everyone. feels is on the brink. >> of actually achieving what people have. talked about in theory for decades but. seems to be getting very close to doing. it and. >> yeah I I can talk on that but I would. say um you know this field many other.

ideas on how to build a quantum computer. has been generated and uh it is very. exciting field quite large field and I. would say that the science was very very. deep too. To get these things to work. you have to invent lots of different. devices. You have to think about. materials. You have to fabricate it, build complex control systems. Engineering and physics is is to me. quite beautiful. And and just to tell. you a little bit about me, um you know,

I grew up building things and as an. experimentalist, you know, I like to to build. instruments, you know, build experiments. to show this. And this was kind of the. ideal project for me because, you know, from very early on it was like, well, let's, you know, do this great physics, but let's also build something. And by. saying, well, what do we have to do to. build a quantum computer? that kind of. led me to know what physics we have to. test and what are the kinds of things we.

have to build and that's just the way my. mind works. I'm I'm much more. practically oriented. So it was a. perfect field for me to get in and. that's kind of what you know intuitively. led me to you know want to do this in. graduate school. And I think it's just. so fascinating the amount of engineering. and technology you have to do to make. this work. >> Where are we in quantum computing. evolution today? So what's the state? At. what point will we have call it. generally accessible and generally.

useful quantum computers that can do all. of the amazing things everyone's kind of. talked about for decades that one would. be able to do quantum computers. >> That's right. So um right now we're. we're about 50 or 100 cubits for the. superconducting case but they they can. be fully controlled and run real. algorithms and do very complicated. things. They have a lot of other systems. that can do that. I think the the. newcomer on the block which looks good.

is neutral atoms where they've made big. neutral atom systems but they they're. still working to get the gates. controlled really well and the like. But. what's happened right now is we can run. genuine algorithms on that and people. have uh h you know have ideas they want. to run but because these cubits are not. perfect okay you it's an analog control. system and fundamentally these quantum.

bits have a little bit of error to it. little bit of noise to it you can only. run so complicated of a project and it's. good enough to write scientific papers. and try things out. Uh, every once in a. while people say they've done something. uh, you know, that's hard to compute and. well that's fine, but they aren't really. big enough to be useful yet. They have. to get bigger and they have to get. better, less noise. >> Do you have a point of view on the.

timelines? This is everyone's. speculation and there's been more hype. than reality. >> Yeah, there's more hype than reality and. and uh, and it's hard. I used to not. want to speculate that but since I. started a company then I can do that and. what we want to do and it's a timeline. of many other groups is to do something. in let's say in the next 8 10 years. something like that but the problem is. you know people are predicting 10 years. you know for a while now so okay we we.

have to do that but um I can tell you. for what we're doing is that we've. identified by what are kind of the. technology bottlenecks of the current. fabric turn ways to make a a quantum. computer. We've written some papers on. it and you know we're working with. people in the semiconductor industry to. manufacture this in a much more coste. effective quality way you know the way. you make these GPUs or something and we.

think uh you know when we get that to. work we can scale up very rapidly so in. in a let's say 10year time scale. something like that. >> in a lot of technically difficult fields. like fusion energy perhaps even quantum. computing. They are seeing profound. acceleration. in getting to their crazy big goals on. these very big technical projects. because of AI. Is AI starting to play a. role in solving some of the engineering,

material science, scaling, noise issues. that we've seen historically in quantum. computing? And do you think that there's. an acceleration underway in performance. improvements because of AI? there there. may be um my partic and and and there's. things we can maybe do modeling and the. like. We also think what we can do is. use the quantum computer and AI together. to solve the problems better. So that. that that's what our theory team is.

proposing. I used to work with Google. quantum AI. That's what they're. proposing. So there's a general feeling. of that. My particular view though is. that in terms of this control, if you. don't build your system cleanly enough. and you know that the control is clear. enough, uh you're you're not going to. get the the great performance out of it. So I'm a little bit old school here and. and working on you know building it that.

way. There's certainly some elements. where you can use AI, you know, in the decoding circuit for. the the error correction and the like. But the one thing to mention to you is. that, you know, these cubits are are. naturally very noisy and you can maybe. do sometimes 100 for bad cubits and. maybe a thousand maybe few thousand. operations before they kind of lose. their memory. You know, you can think of. it as like dynamic RAM where you have to.

refresh it. Well, you have to refresh it. with error correction. And because of. that, you're talking about a million. cubit quantum computers to be general. purpose and solve really hard problems. There might be some. >> a million something. A million is a good. round number for it. Maybe a little bit. more. And right now we're at you know a. hundred or you know a little bit more. than that. So we have a ways to go. What is your view on China and the. progress that they're making in this.

technology versus the US? This is the. topic dour in every field, industrial. field, computing, science is where's. China at compared to the US, the. comparisons and everyone's worried about. the progress in China versus the US and. what that means. So I can talk about my. own field but when I have read the. papers that um duplicated what we did at. at Google on the quantum supremacy. experiment you know they know what.

they're doing. I mean they they go. through the theory they talk about a lot. of it is very similar to what we're. doing but they know what they're doing. and they're getting great results. And. the thing that scares me a little bit. is, you know, last December the Google. group published the latest results, which is really much nicer. They made. some real improvement, but then China. soon afterward published something kind. of indicating they were, you know, on. par or near par or something to it. And,

you know, I'm worried that the the. Chinese government is saying, well, you. can't publish anything until it's in the. Western press. and then you can, you. know, then it's open and you can talk. about it. >> That's precisely what I've heard. And. so, >> yeah. So, so uh, you know, I I'm I'm a. I'm a little bit uh concerned about. that. Now, what we're doing with our our. company is we're doing a new generation. of fabrication of the devices. And I.

would cons consider in my my my research. we had the simple fabrication with the. original papers in 85 and then around. 2000 we had more sophisticated. fabrication and then for the quantum. supremacy experiment we did something. even more complicated other groups too. but we want to do a similar jump in the. fabrication and what's interesting about. this is we're going to be using applied.

materials and the modern fabrication. processes that they have which on 300 mm. tools you know you can't get in China. for example. >> you can get it for camos and then. they're developing we're developing. standard processes but you know new. recipes and new ways to put it together. >> and we think by doing that we can do a. huge leaprog and then get there faster. and get there in a way that you know.

will protect our lead. There's other. things we're doing too. Uh and you know. that that's a small part of it, but uh. you know we think there's a way to um. you know really lead the field and uh. and we're happy we have good industrial. partners of uh applied materials. synopsis design tools Hula Packard. Enterprise some startups who do the. theory work. Uh so you know we have a. good consortium and we want to use all.

that knowledge and expertise of. engineering to make this happen. >> Where were you when you got the news. this week that you won the Nobel Prize. and how surprised were you because this. is a 40year-old. research effort. Had anyone giving you a. call rumor gossip mill saying, "Hey, you're on the list this year potentially. being considered.". >> So let me uh give you a little bit of. the inside story. Um you know if you we. we've known that this was a important. experiment from the beginning. we've. obtained some other prizes that are you.

know much less wellknown and really. appreciative of all that and you you. what happens is the Nobel um um system. uh put together Nobel symposiums where. they get together physicists in a. certain field which is quantum. information and this kind of thing and. they they give uh have all the. scientists give talks and and they want. to kind of check on the vi vitality of.

the you know of the field, how big is. it? And then you know also maybe some of. the the leaders that maybe think about. it, you know, can they give a good talk? Would they good be a good. representative? So um Michelle and John and I have been. to these uh symposiums before and we. kind of knew, you know, what was going. on, you know, that at least we were. considered. And but I I'll just tell you. as a scientist just to be invited to. these and be considered is a is a.

fantastic honor, you know, and and. having getting the prize is just so kind. of unbelievable that you shouldn't think. that way. So, you know, I've known about. it for a few years. And in fact, to be. very honest, in the past when the dates. have come around, it's like, oh, is this. going to happen? And then you wake up in. the morning and it's like, "Oh, it. didn't happen." And you're kind of down. for a day. You know, it didn't happen. this year. And that's a very bad.

attitude. I I don't like that at all. And, you know, you you should not covet. some, you know, insanely difficult uh. prize that, you know, only only goes to. a few people. So, what happened this. year is I kind of worked through this. over several years and this year I just. kind of forgot about it. Okay. So, I. went to bed and then uh and then uh we. got the call at 3:00 and my wife. answered the phone and found out what. happened. But um she didn't wake me up.

right away because she knew if the day. was going to be hectic and I needed my. sleep to not be grumpy. That. >> was nice of her. >> Don't want to be grumpy talking it. So, she woke me up at 5:30 and. >> you know, as I looked at the computer, oh my god. you know, and then we had. some reporters coming over at 6. >> which, you know, interviewed me, you. know, right when I had found out, half. hour after I'd found out. >> And it's it's a it's it's great. It's. it's a great honor and uh it's just been.

really fun. And then, you know, I've. been getting a lot of emails from people. I've worked with or students I've had in. the past congratulating me and you. exchange little stories and the like. and it's it's it's kind of a very. special time. >> That's great. Any um science or. technology fields that you've been. following outside of your core. discipline that you think are really. exciting. I always like to hear what.

major kind of thinkers. >> to be honest. I'm just so focused on. doing this and especially when you start. a company, you better be focused, right? So, I'm doing that. But one of the. fields that I find, this is someone Ben. Mazen at UC Santa Barbara is looking for. exoplanets. and they're using superconducting. detectors that are somewhat similar to. what we're doing. In fact, in the 1990s.

or so, I helped, you know, helped. establish that field with other people. and did that for five, six, seven years. uh to do that. but he's doing it in a. different way. And I really like how, you know, this instrumentation, you. know, that we've been working on is. their quantum devices are are now able. to um uh do these astronomy. uh detectors and and look for look for. these. And of course, there's so much. going on in astronomy these way days.

with gravitational detectors and. exoplanet searches and it it it's just. really fascinating to me. And again it's. very much technologyoriented where. people are building good detectors. This. is what I like. Okay. I like building. building instruments. So that that's. particularly interest. >> Yeah, that's great. I mean very exciting. field and hopefully will develop quantum. computers that will help us build.

materials and technology to help us get. there one day. >> So that's right. >> Many rungs on the ladder of human. progress. Well, congratulations again on. winning the Nobel Prize in physics this. year. Very welld deserved. It's a. fantastic moment. Enjoy it. Enjoy the. ceremony and we're excited for your. continued work in the field of material. quantum computing. And thank you. >> Yeah. And thank you. I really enjoyed. the questions and the flow where you. were asking questions to explain it at.

the right level for people. And uh I I I. really appreciate that. This is a great. great podcast. >> Great. Thank you. [Music]. >> I'm going all in.