John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis will receive this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics from the hands of his Majesty the King of Sweden on December 10. They are being honored for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit. 

It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology.

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the way that century-old quantum mechanics continually offers new surprises. It is also enormously useful, as quantum mechanics is the foundation of all digital technology,” stated Olle Eriksson, Chair of the Nobel Committee for Physics, at the prize announcement in October.

Illustration: Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences

Drug discovery and brain recordings

The transistors in computer microchips are one example of the established quantum technology that surrounds us, and has also provided the laureates opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors. 

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Breaking new ground: Quantum computing

According to Professor Matthias Christandl, Leader of the Quantum for Life Centre in Copenhagen, the potential of quantum computing within life sciences is enormous and in order to take the lead, investments in both quantum hardware and software is essential.


Within life sciences there are a number of cool applications based on these discoveries, the obvious being drug discovery, states Magnus Boman, Professor in AI within Health at the department of medicine at Karolinska Institutet. 

“Every superconducting quantum computer uses Josephson junctions* as qubits, thus directly implementing the macroscopic quantum states that the laureates discovered. So when we calculate protein-folding energies or optimize drug-target interactions, we are using their fundamental discovery that quantum superposition can exist in circuits that are large enough to fabricate and control.”

Magnus Boman, Professor in AI within Health, Karolinska Institutet. Photo: Rickard Kilsröm

The three laureates also proved that quantum coherence could be maintained in macroscopic circuits, enabling today’s SQUID (superconducting quantum interference device) magnetometry, adds Boman.

Sweden’s on-scalp MEG technology directly builds on this.

“Sweden’s on-scalp MEG technology [a magnetic brain recording, but with higher sensitivity and spatial precision than the conventional MEG (magnetoencephalography) systems] directly builds on this. Our high-Tc SQUIDs that operate at 77K are essentially sophisticated descendants of their original experiments. The laureates proved that quantum mechanics governs macroscopic superconducting circuits.” 

This foundational understanding enables Boman and his colleagues to design SQUIDs in the knowledge that quantum coherence will be maintained, understand noise limits in superconducting sensors, and optimize SQUID parameters using quantum mechanical models.

At QLSC, their on-scalp MEG allows flexible sensor arrays that conform to individual head shapes.

Magnus Boman is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Swedish Quantum Life Science Centre (QLSC), a collaborative effort involving the Wallenberg Centre for Quantum Technology, Swelife, representatives from four universities and two hospitals, as well as industry partners and startups. The goal of QLSC, which is based at Karolinska Institutet, is to support interdisciplinary research, development, and implementation of quantum life science applications. At QLSC, their on-scalp MEG allows flexible sensor arrays that conform to individual head shapes.

“This is particularly transformative for pediatric neurology, epilepsy for example, and movement disorder studies where traditional MEG could fail,” explains Boman.

“Keeping patient data safe in a post-crypto world is also a priority at QLSC,” he adds.

When it comes to future life science applications Boman mentions quantum machine-learning on superconducting chips that analyze multi-omic data (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, spatial transcriptomics) to optimize treatment protocols individually for precision medicine.

“Next-generation MEG could also imagine continuous monitoring of neural states for brain-computer interfaces or early detection of seizures/strokes,” he adds.

facts
  • Classic computing vs Quantum computing: Classic computing is built on bits while quantum computing is built on quantum bits, qubits, which can store zeros and ones. Qubits can represent any combination of both zero and one simultaneously and this is called a superposition.
  • Quantum computer vs Superconducting quantum computer: A superconducting quantum computer uses superconducting circuits for qubits.
  • * A Josephson junction is a quantum device consisting of two superconductors separated by a thin insulating barrier, which allows for quantum tunneling of Cooper pairs and can be utilized in applications such as superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs).