These Nobel Prize Winners Paved The Way For Quantum Computing

In this week’s edition of The Prototype, we look at this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics, a startup using AI to track pathogens, a quantum cooling breakthrough and more. To get The Prototype in your inbox, sign up here.

Goeran Johansson, Member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, addresses a press conference on the awarding of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics

AFP via Getty Images

Three researchers who paved the way for today’s quantum computers won the Nobel Prize in Physics this week. John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis will share the approximately $1.2 million award thanks to groundbreaking experiments they conducted in the 1980s.

In this work, they built a superconducting electric circuit, which allows electricity to flow through without resistance. In that circuit, they were able to manipulate the electrons to display certain quantum mechanical properties. This discovery is used today by tech companies like Google and IBM in their quantum computers.

All three scientists are working to extend this breakthrough. Clarke, a professor at University of California, Berkeley, built equipment using this technology for the Axion Dark Matter Experiment to help detect dark matter, a hypothetical substance thought to make up over 80% of the universe. Martinis worked at Google Quantum A.I. lab from 2014 to 2020, helping to develop a quantum processor and has since cofounded quantum computing startup Qolab. Devoret is currently Chief Scientist at Google’s Quantum A.I. lab.

“I am humbled to share the prize alongside collaborators and friends John Clarke and John Martinis,” Deverot said in a statement. “This Nobel Prize celebrates far more than the work of three individuals. It recognizes a 40 year journey by researchers worldwide.”

This Startup Raised $7 Million To Track Microbes With AI

Hyperspectral CEO Matt Theurer

Hyperspectral

Detecting contamination from toxins and bacteria is a challenge for healthcare systems and food preparation companies alike. That’s both because of the complexity of microscopic threats and the slow, labor-intensive nature of the lab work to test for them.

This was a lesson Matt Theurer learned at the height of the Covid pandemic, before rapid testing was available. “We all remember waiting in line for hours to get swabbed and then getting results two or three days later,” he said. “It was too slow, too centralized and too expensive.”

It’s a problem his company, Hyperspectral, aims to solve. Founded in 2022 by Theurer (CEO), Lauren Stack (COO) and Vince Lubsey (CTO), it aims to use spectrography and AI to rapidly detect potentially dangerous microorganisms or chemicals. This week, the company raised a $7 million series A extension, bringing its total funding to about $15.5 million. The valuation was undisclosed.

Spectrography is based on a simple principle: when you shine certain frequencies of light at different objects, it uniquely reflects or absorbs them. This enables scientists to identify and classify different substances. Hyperspectral’s AI models are trained on such data from thousands of pathogens, enabling its software to quickly identify potential contamination in a sample in minutes.

With the new capital in hand, Theuer says his company is “coming out of beta testing,” and working to bring its “science as a service” into the hands of its first customers. “And then we’re setting ourselves up to scale,” he added.

DISCOVERY OF THE WEEK: (SLIGHTLY) WARMER QUANTUM SUPERCONDUCTING

Quantum hardware startup EeroQ demonstrated that it can make a superconducting chip work at temperatures just above 1 Kelvin–one degree higher than absolute zero. Currently, quantum computers using these chips have to be cooled to 0.01 K to operate. That doesn’t sound like a big difference, but it’s a big step to making them more practical. Cooling below 1 K requires specialized, expensive equipment that isn’t needed to reach 1 K. (Incidentally, this is bad news for companies planning to mine helium-3 on the Moon. Quantum computing is one of its big use cases because that isotope is used in the refrigerators that cool them below 1K.)

WHAT ELSE I WROTE THIS WEEK

Thomas Gallagher and I wrote about how space billionaire Abel Avellan has doubled his net worth in the past month on the strength of his company AST SpaceMobile’s deals with Verizon and other major telecom companies. I profiled Avellan earlier this year.

In my other newsletter, InnovationRx, Amy Feldman and I looked at the federal shutdown’s impact on healthcare, the Nobel Prize winners in medicine, a new biotech company from scientist-billionaire Robert Langer, and more.

SCIENCE AND TECH TIDBITS

Silicon Valley startup Lilac Solutions aims to extract lithium from briny water at oil fields and sites like the Great Salt Lake in Utah instead of digging it out of the ground.

Researchers at Florida International University have developed cyberdefenses for drones that help prevent them from being hijacked.

Rocket startup Stoke Space raised a $510 million investment round to accelerate development of its reusable spacecraft Nova and complete its launch complex at Cape Canaveral.

Brain-computer interface startup Cognixion began a clinical study testing its software with an Apple Vision Pro to enable paralyzed patients to communicate and operate a computer. I wrote about Cognixion’s technology earlier this year.

An international team of scientists revived microorganisms that have been trapped in permafrost for thousands of years.

Engineers at MIT developed an aluminum alloy that can be 3D-printed and is five times stronger than traditionally cast aluminum, making it ideal for aircraft parts that currently use heavier metals like titanium.

PRO SCIENCE TIP: KEEP YOUR BRAIN YOUNG WITH CREATIVE PURSUITS

If you want to keep your brain young, find a creative hobby. That’s my takeaway from a new paper that studied the brains of more than 1,400 people. The team of researchers found those who engage in long-term creative pursuits–like music, painting or writing– have “younger” brains than those who don’t, as measured by cognitive tests and brain scans. Interestingly enough, it didn’t matter what creative hobby people chose to pursue–all of them “help protect brain connections that are vulnerable to accelerated aging,” said study co-author Carlos Coronel.

WHAT’S ENTERTAINING ME THIS WEEK

While other folks debate Taylor Swift’s latest (it’s fine, not great), I’d like to point you to my contender for best pop album of 2025: Born Blue by singer-songwriter Kings Eliot. It’s a powerhouse debut record, loaded with emotional ballads like “Ashes In The Morning”, slow jams like “Starcrossed” and bops like ”The Promise.” The tracks highlight Elliot’s depth and range, and I’m excited to see how her music develops.

These Nobel Prize Winners Paved The Way For Quantum Computing

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