QuEra Scientists Named Co-Principal Investigators on Three of Nine Teams in DOE’s Quantum Chemistry Program

Insider BriefPRESS RELEASE — QuEra Computing, the leader in quantum computing, today announced that its scientists will work with three of the nine teams selected for the Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry (QC3) program at the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) to develop neutral-atom based modeling frameworks for complex materials and molecules. The three-year program, announced by the Department of Energy in March 2026, directs $37 million across the program performers.QC3 exists to close the gap between vendor roadmaps that are rapidly transitioning to expanded logical capabilities by the end of the decade but don’t yet clearly map to the resources required for published algorithms for energy-relevant chemistry applications. ARPA-E’s premise is that the gap closes through full-stack co-design, where improvements of two to three times at each layer of the stack compound into an order of magnitude overall. The program asks its teams to identify an application worth a quadrillion BTU of energy or a gigaton of CO₂-equivalent, and to pursue a scalable hundredfold improvement over classical state of the art, validated at approximately 100 logical qubits. QuEra‘s updated roadmap targets 1,000 logical qubits by 2029, providing ample hardware capability for this program.QuEra scientists serve as co-principal investigators on each of the following teams, contributing neutral-atom access, expertise, algorithm and architecture co-design.The QC3 solicitation required every applicant to submit a letter of intent from a quantum hardware provider as part of its application, which made the hardware choice a gating requirement rather than a later implementation detail. Five of the nine selected primes are hardware companies running their own machines. QuEra is the external hardware provider partner for three out of the remaining four projects.QuEra‘s neutral atom technology and application co-design approach was an attractive choice for partners thanks to the architectural benefits it provides for full-stack application development and optimization across both error correction and application layers. Neutral atoms are identical by nature, controlled wirelessly by lasers, and are reconfigurable, which enables a high degree of connectivity: a core lever in algorithm development and error correction implementation.“QuEra‘s architecture and software stack give researchers exceptional flexibility to co-design quantum error correction and fault-tolerant applications with the hardware itself,” said Shengtao Wang, VP of Algorithms and Applications at QuEra. “That flexibility is especially valuable in a long-term program like ARPA-E’s QC3, which aims to deliver a step change in computational chemistry and materials science.”ARPA-E’s co-design thesis is one that QuEra is closely aligned with.

With Los Alamos National Laboratory, QuEra published a transversal STAR architecture in PRX Quantum in June 2026 that delivers up to 250 times faster execution and roughly half the physical qubits of conventional fault-tolerant approaches for structured quantum simulation, achieved specifically by co-designing error correction around neutral-atom reconfigurable connectivity. Separately, algorithmic fault tolerance published in Nature in 2025 reduced runtime overhead by 10 to 100 times for reconfigurable architectures.“We have a growing body of evidence that the earliest examples of quantum advantage will be the result of co-design across the entire application stack, from the algorithm design to the QEC architecture, to the hardware itself,” said Stefan Ostermann, Director of Quantum Applications at QuEra. “The Department of Energy’s approach through QC3 is one we deeply agree with, and we are excited to partner closely with them over the course of this program.”TopicsShare Get the latest research, company news, and market intelligence every week. MENTIONED IN THE ARTICLEQuEra Computing uses research on neutral atoms, developed at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as the basis for a scalable, programmable quantum computer solution. QuEra’s quantum processing technology is based on trapping, energizing, and shuttling atoms with laser beams.The United States Department of Energy is a cabinet-level department of the United States Government concerned with the United States' policies regarding energy and safety in handling nuclear material.More in Research The Quantum Insider (TQI) is the leading source for the latest quantum technology news, market intelligence, industry analysis, and data covering the global quantum ecosystem. NEWSROOMPLATFORMSERVICESCOMPANY© 2026 The Quantum Insider. All rights reserved. Part of the Resonance networkOne of our team will be in touch to learn more about your requirements, and provide pricing and access options. We use cookies to analyse traffic and improve your experience. Privacy Policy