New Delhi: In the 1980s, John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis demonstrated for the first time that quantum effects, typically observed on scales too small for optical microscopes to resolve, also apply to the everyday objects that humans can see and touch. Quantum mechanical tunnelling and quantised energy levels were observed in an electrical circuit with a thin insulating layer that does not conduct electricity at all, sandwiched between two superconducting layers that offer no electrical resistance. This advancement was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2025, and paves the way for practical, everyday quantum computers.
The winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. (Image Credit: UC Berkeley/Yale Quantum Institute).
Devoret went on to become a key figure in the development of superconducting qubits, or quantum bits, and invented the cat qubit, the flagship technology of Alice & Bob, a quantum computing company based in Paris and Boston. This cat qubit technology was adopted by Amazon for its Ocelot quantum computing chip. Devoret advised the co-founders of Alice and Bob and contributed to the early development of the company before joining Google. Martinis is one of the current consultive board members of Alice & Bob, who has been advising the company on scientific matters along with three other founding figures in quantum computing, David DiVincenzo, Yasunobu Nakamura and Daniel Gottesman.
Towards practical, large-scale quantum computers
Scientific board member of Alice & Bob, Benjamin Huard says “Michel’s scientific integrity, passion, and optimism, alongside the scientific breakthroughs he and his colleagues pioneered, has shaped much of the quantum computing landscape we navigate today. Their work did not only trigger superconducting qubit research but demonstrated that something as macroscopic as an electrical circuit obeys quantum physics.” CTO and Co-Founder of Alice & Bob, Raphael Lescanne said, “This award is a recognition of a decades-long scientific journey that has been made possible by the brilliant minds at the intersection of theoretical and experimental quantum physics. We are entering an era where the seminal work of these pioneers is becoming a true computing innovation.”