2025 Nobel Prize in Physics: Devoret, Martinis & Clarke — Josephson Junctions and the Future of Quantum Computing
2025 Nobel Prize in Physics: Devoret, Martinis & Clarke The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics to Michel H. Devoret (Google’s Chief Scientist of Quantum Hardware), John M. Martinis (former Google employee) and John Clarke of UC Berkeley “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.” Their work on Josephson junctions laid the foundation for today’s superconducting qubits used in quantum computing. Why it matters The 1984–85 experiments with Josephson junctions demonstrated macroscopic quantum tunnelling and energy quantisation in electrical circuits — key phenomena enabling superconducting qubits. These discoveries directly influenced the development of modern quantum processors and companies’ research into quantum computing, including Google’s Quantum AI efforts and the Willow chip announced by Google. Quotable…
