Yale to continue leadership role in $125M DoE quantum center

Led by DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory, C2QA unites 28 premiere institutions from across the country – including Yale – to tackle critical challenges in building practical quantum computers. The center is one of five National QIS Research Centers established to accelerate scientific discovery and innovation in quantum technologies.

When C2QA was first established in 2020, Yale played a central role with Steven Girvin serving as the center's founding director, Robert Schoelkopf leading the devices group, Michel Devoret leading quantum error correction efforts, and Hong Tang leading quantum signal transduction research. Yale's contributions during the first five years helped establish the foundation for the breakthroughs the center continues to build upon today.

Yale continues its leadership within C2QA with Michael Hatridge, associate professor of applied physics, serving as one of the Modular Quantum Systems Thrust Leaders for the center's renewed phase, helping guide research on scalable quantum architectures.

In its renewed phase, C2QA will pursue two focused efforts:

• Achieving quantum advantage through coherence-driven materials design: Building on recent breakthroughs that achieved the longest-ever coherence times for superconducting qubits (exceeding one millisecond), researchers will work across three physical platforms: superconducting systems, neutral atoms, and diamond materials.
   
• Realizing scalable, modular quantum architectures: Rather than building single massive quantum computers with millions of qubits, C2QA researchers are developing frameworks to connect smaller quantum modules into unified computing systems, making large-scale quantum computing more feasible.
   

During its first five years, C2QA achieved significant milestones including the development of tantalum-based qubits with record-breaking coherence times and the first demonstration of quantum error correction significantly beyond break-even – work led by Yale's Michel Devoret, who shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for earlier discoveries foundational to today's quantum systems.

The center also pioneered workforce development programs ranging from high school summer schools to career transition resources for practicing scientists and engineers looking to enter the quantum field.

For more information, view the full Department of Energy’s news release.