Argonne-led Q-NEXT quantum center renewed for five years - anl.gov

Editor’s note: Read the U.S. Department of Energy’s press release about the renewal of the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. Today the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that DOE has renewed funding for Q-NEXT for another five years. Q-NEXT is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center (NQISRC) led by Argonne National Laboratory in partnership with SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, both DOE national labs. The renewal ensures that Q-NEXT will continue to lead the charge in advancing quantum information science and technology, helping solidify the United States’ position as a global leader in this transformative field. Q-NEXT will be funded by DOE at $125 million over the next five years, with $25 million in fiscal year 2026 and outyear funding contingent on congressional appropriations. “We’re building on the strong foundation we’ve laid over the past five years to take on our renewed mission — harnessing distributed entanglement to show what’s possible with scalable quantum platforms.” — Martin Holt, Q-NEXT director and Argonne scientist “Quantum information science is a cornerstone of the nation’s technological future, with the potential to transform industries including computing, healthcare and national security,” said inaugural Q-NEXT Director David Awschalom, who is also a senior scientist at Argonne, the director of quantum engineering at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, and director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. ​“Through our renewed mission, Q-NEXT will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible in quantum science, delivering the foundational knowledge, tools and technologies needed to ensure national leadership in this critical field.” Awschalom has now assumed the role of chief science officer. Q-NEXT’s mission is to unlock the future of quantum information by seamlessly integrating quantum and traditional information systems across optical networks. Building on its achievements over the past five years, the center will focus on demonstrating the potential of distributed quantum entanglement — a phenomenon where qubits, the fundamental unit of quantum information, remain connected even when separated by large distances. “We’re building on the strong foundation we’ve laid over the past five years to take on our renewed mission — harnessing distributed entanglement to show what’s possible with scalable quantum platforms,” said Q-NEXT Director and Argonne scientist Martin Holt. ​“By uniting quantum technologies across optical networks, we will pave the way for systems capable of revolutionizing how we process, transmit and receive information.” Q-NEXT brings together a strong network of partners: two DOE national laboratories, 11 leading universities and six tech companies. This cross-sector collaboration ensures that the center’s work is both innovative and practical, bridging the gap between scientific discovery and real-world application. Universities contribute expertise in quantum sensing and communication, while industry partners provide access to state-of-the-art prototypes and manufacturing capabilities. Together, Q-NEXT partners form a vibrant ecosystem that drives progress in quantum science. “We envision quantum systems that work across chip-to-chip, lab-to-lab and city-to-city scales,” said Q-NEXT Deputy Director Jennifer Dionne, who is a professor of materials science and engineering and, by courtesy, of radiology at Stanford University and SLAC. ​“We’re excited to advance a shared set of hardware, software and protocols to make quantum networks and sensors efficient and practical.” Q-NEXT’s renewed efforts will focus on three scientific goals: Q-NEXT will pursue its goals through large-scale, team-based projects that combine materials science, device engineering and quantum physics theory. By leveraging world-class science facilities, Q-NEXT aims to deliver breakthroughs that will shape the future of quantum technology. These facilities include the Argonne and SLAC Quantum Foundries, the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource and several DOE Office of Science user facilities: Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source and Center for Nanoscale Materials, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility and SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source. In addition to its scientific mission, Q-NEXT will continue to build the next generation of quantum scientists, engineers, technicians and other professionals. Through educational programs, internships and training opportunities such as the DOE Science Undergraduate Laboratory Internship and the Open Quantum Initiative Undergraduate Fellowship, the center is preparing students, early-career researchers and operations specialists to thrive in the rapidly growing quantum industry. “By fostering a skilled workforce, Q-NEXT is ensuring that the U.S. remains at the forefront of quantum innovation,” Awschalom said. Q-NEXT was established in 2020, and in its first five years, it led the establishment of the Argonne and SLAC Quantum Foundries. Together these two national facilities contribute to a robust supply chain of standardized materials and devices. Among Q-NEXT’s first-run science breakthroughs: setting a record lifetime — an impressive 5 seconds — for a qubit in silicon carbide; engineering a high-performance qubit based on niobium, a previously understudied core material; and developing a method to pinpoint correlations between magnetic fields picked up by quantum sensors. Q-NEXT also published ​“A Roadmap for Quantum Interconnects,” which lays out the research and scientific discoveries needed for distributing quantum information in 10 to 15 years. Thirty-nine experts at 15 organizations co-authored the report. “We’ve built an active, cross-disciplinary collaboration that’s laid the groundwork for networked quantum information by intertwining computing, sensing and communication,” Holt said. ​“Over the next five years, we’ll strengthen these efforts, strategically coordinating with the other NQISRCs and the national quantum ecosystem to accelerate the arrival of transformative quantum technologies.” Collaboration with industry has been essential to the center’s mission — turning cutting-edge research into innovations that can transform technology and strengthen the nation’s quantum leadership. “IBM’s work with the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, such as Q-NEXT led by Argonne, is vital to our mission to build the future of computing,” said Jay Gambetta, director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. IBM is a Q-NEXT partner. ​“Together, we are exploring how efficient quantum networks can be created through optical links connected to IBM’s quantum networking units. This could deliver the fundamental technology needed to link the multiple, interconnected fault-tolerant quantum computers of the future over kilometer distances, allowing the convergence of quantum computation and communication within a future quantum computing internet that could revolutionize scientific and industrial discovery.” Q-NEXT is one of five DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Centers renewed for another five years. “Quantum technologies are driving innovations across society, and our laboratory is focusing on delivering science breakthroughs to accelerate these innovations,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. ​“With a renewed Q-NEXT, we will continue to play an integral role in the national quantum ecosystem through coordinated, complementary efforts with DOE’s other quantum research centers. We are committed to realizing the promise of quantum information to build a more connected world and shape a future of scientific progress that strengthens our nation’s security, prosperity and technological leadership.” DOE national laboratories Argonne and SLAC are expected to be joined in the collaboration by academic and industry partners including Applied Materials, Caltech, Cornell University, IBM, Intel, IonQ, MIT, PsiQuantum, Quantum Opus, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Barbara, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Iowa and University of Wisconsin–Madison. This work was supported by the DOE’s Office of Science National Quantum Information Science Research Centers as part of the Q-NEXT center. About Argonne’s Center for Nanoscale Materials The Center for Nanoscale Materials is one of the five DOE Nanoscale Science Research Centers, premier national user facilities for interdisciplinary research at the nanoscale supported by the DOE Office of Science. Together the NSRCs comprise a suite of complementary facilities that provide researchers with state-of-the-art capabilities to fabricate, process, characterize and model nanoscale materials, and constitute the largest infrastructure investment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The NSRCs are located at DOE’s Argonne, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Oak Ridge, Sandia and Los Alamos National Laboratories. For more information about the DOE NSRCs, please visit https://​sci​ence​.osti​.gov/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​/​U​s​e​r​-​F​a​c​i​l​i​t​i​e​s​-​a​t​-​a​-​G​lance.

The Argonne Leadership Computing Facility provides supercomputing capabilities to the scientific and engineering community to advance fundamental discovery and understanding in a broad range of disciplines. Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program, the ALCF is one of two DOE Leadership Computing Facilities in the nation dedicated to open science. The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. DOE Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Q-NEXT is a U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Argonne National Laboratory. The center brings together world-class researchers from national laboratories, universities and technology companies with the goal of developing the science and technology to control and distribute quantum information. Q-NEXT develops networks of sensors and secure communications systems, creates materials for scalable quantum devices, and trains the next-generation quantum-ready workforce to ensure continued U.S. scientific and economic leadership in the rapidly advancing field of quantum information science. Visit https://​q​-next​.org/.

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit https://​ener​gy​.gov/​s​c​ience.