John M. Martinis

John M. Martinis
Martinis in 2025
Born
John Matthew Martinis

1958 (age 67–68)
EducationUniversity of California, Berkeley (grad. 1980, 1987)
Awards
Scientific career
Fields
WorkplacesUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
ThesisMacroscopic Quantum Tunneling and Energy-Level Quantization in the Zero Voltage State of the Current-Biased Josephson Junction (1985)
John Clarke

John Matthew Martinis (born 1958) is an American physicist and Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.[1][2] He led a team to develop a superconducting quantum computer at the Quantum AI Lab. With the Sycamore processor, the team claimed the first evidence of quantum supremacy in 2019. He shared the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics with John Clarke and Michel Devoret for joint work on macroscopic quantum phenomena in superconductors.[3]

Early life and education

John Matthew Martinis was born in 1958 and raised in San Pedro, Los Angeles.[4] His father, a Croat from Komiža on the island of Vis near Split, Croatia,[5] immigrated to the United States from Yugoslavia to escape the communist regime.[4] His mother was born in San Pedro to parents who had also emigrated from Croatia.[6]

Martinis attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a B.S. in Physics in 1980, and a Ph.D. in Physics in 1987.[7]

During his doctoral studies, Martinis investigated the quantum behaviour of a macroscopic variable, the phase difference across a Josephson tunnel junction.[8][9][10] His doctoral advisor was John Clarke.[9] During this time, he collaborated with Michel Devoret, a postdoctoral researcher at the time.[9]

In 1985, Clarke, Devoret, and Martinis presented their analysis of microwave pulses that demonstrated the quantized energy levels of a Josephson junction.[9] This work would later become the basis for superconducting quantum computing.[9]

Career

Martinis joined the CEA Paris-Saclay in France[11] for a first postdoc, and then the Electromagnetic Technology division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, where he worked on superconducting quantum interference device (SQUIDs) amplifiers.[12][11]

Since 2004, Martinis has served on the faculty of the University of California, Santa Barbara.[1] He held the title of Susan and Bruce Worster Chair in Experimental Physics for many years. The quantum device he developed in collaboration with UCSB colleagues was named Science magazine's 2010 Breakthrough of the Year.[1] Google Quantum AI Lab, a partnership between UC Santa Barbara and Google, announced in 2014 that it had hired Martinis and his team in a multimillion dollar deal to build a quantum computer using superconducting qubits.[13][14] He and his team published a paper in Nature in 2019,[15] where they presented how they achieved quantum supremacy for the first time using the Sycamore processor, a 53-qubit quantum processor.[16] Martinis resigned from Google in April 2020 after being reassigned to an advisory role.[17][13]

In 2020, Martinis joined Silicon Quantum Computing, a start-up founded in Australia by Professor Michelle Simmons.[18]

In 2026, he was appointed to the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) by President Donald Trump.[19]

Qolab

In 2022, together with CEO Alan Ho, he founded Qolab, a quantum computing private company based on semiconductor chip manufacturing.[20]

Since 2025, Qolab and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) are co-leading a consortium for the DARPA Quantum Benchmarking Initiative (QBI). The team is tasked with building an industrially useful quantum supercomputer by 2033. Within this partnership, Martinis and Qolab lead the hardware build, designing and fabricating the core superconducting quantum processors.[21][22] In December 2025, Qolab launched Qolab Start, a superconducting qubit platform for hardware research and workforce development.[22] Built for universities, research labs, and workforce training, it eliminates the need to build custom labs by providing pre-packaged hardware and direct access to quantum processors. Researchers can access these systems via an on-premise installation or through the cloud.[23] In February 2026, Singapore's National Quantum Federated Foundry (NQFF) and Qolab formed a research collaboration to build integrated cryogenic low-pass filters (LPFs) for quantum processors.[24]

Martinis is the co-leader of Quantum Scaling Alliance (QSA), a global group that develops quantum computing technology and include Qolab as well as others such as Applied Materials, HPE, Synopsys.[25]

Honors and awards

In 2014, he shared the Fritz London Memorial Prize with Michel Devoret and Robert J. Schoelkopf.[26]

Martinis was chosen for Nature's 10, a list of people who mattered for science in 2019.[27]

In 2021, he received the John Stewart Bell Prize for Research on Fundamental Issues in Quantum Mechanics and Their Applications.[28]

In 2025, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics alongside his doctoral advisor John Clarke and Michel Devoret for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunnelling and energy quantisation in an electric circuit.[3][29]

In 2026, he was decorated with the Grand Order of King Dmitar Zvonimir by the Croatian president Zoran Milanović for exceptional contribution to the development and promotion of quantum physics and technology on a global level, proud emphasis and preservation of Croatian origin, and special merit in transferring cutting-edge scientific knowledge to the Croatian academic community.[30]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "John M. Martinis". UC Santa Barbara. Archived from the original on October 10, 2025. Retrieved October 10, 2025.
  2. ↑ "Who is John M. Martinis? Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 Winner's Education & Other Awards". The Daily Guardian. October 7, 2025. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  3. 1 2 "Nobel Prize in Physics 2025". NobelPrize.org. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  4. 1 2 "2025 Nobel Prize Resources – Meet the Laureates". AIP.ORG. October 7, 2025. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  5. ↑ Dimitropoulos, George (October 10, 2025). "New generation will make the quantum revolution a reality,' says Nobel laureate John Martinis". Euronews. Retrieved October 13, 2025.
  6. ↑ Glas Hrvatske | HRT (December 19, 2025). Ekskluzivan intervju s dobitnikom Nobelove nagrade Johnom Martinisom. Retrieved January 3, 2026 – via YouTube.
  7. ↑ "Meet the 2025 Nobel prize winners in Physics: Where they studied and how their research shaped quantum science". The Times of India. October 7, 2025. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved October 7, 2025.
  8. ↑ Clarke, J.; Cleland, A. N.; Devoret, M. H.; Esteve, D.; Martinis, J. M. (February 26, 1988). "Quantum mechanics of a macroscopic variable: the phase difference of a josephson junction". Science. 239 (4843): 992–997. Bibcode:1988Sci...239..992C. doi:10.1126/science.239.4843.992. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 17815701. S2CID 1732678.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 Hassinger, Sebastian (September 11, 2024). The New Quantum Era. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-1-0981-4938-3.
  10. ↑ Martinis, J. M. (1985). Macroscopic Quantum Tunneling and Energy-Level Quantization in the Zero Voltage State of the Current-Biased Josephson Junction (Ph.D. thesis). ProQuest 303359571.
  11. 1 2 Rogers, Kara (October 7, 2025). "John M. Martinis". www.britannica.com. Retrieved October 8, 2025.
  12. ↑ Welty, Richard P.; Martinis, John M. (March 1993). "Two-stage integrated SQUID amplifier with series array output". IEEE Transactions on Applied Superconductivity. 3 (1): 2605–2608. Bibcode:1993ITAS....3.2605W. doi:10.1109/77.233523. ISSN 1051-8223. S2CID 33500389.
  13. 1 2 "Google's Top Quantum Scientist Explains In Detail Why He Resigned". forbes.com. April 30, 2020. Retrieved January 18, 2025.
  14. ↑ Finley, Klint (September 5, 2014). "The Man Who Will Build Google's Elusive Quantum Computer". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
  15. ↑ Arute, Frank; Arya, Kunal; Babbush, Ryan; Bacon, Dave; Bardin, Joseph C.; Barends, Rami; Biswas, Rupak; Boixo, Sergio; Brandao, Fernando G. S. L.; Buell, David A.; Burkett, Brian (October 2019). "Quantum supremacy using a programmable superconducting processor". Nature. 574 (7779): 505–510. arXiv:1910.11333. Bibcode:2019Natur.574..505A. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1666-5. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 31645734.
  16. ↑ "Shtetl-Optimized » Blog Archive » Quantum supremacy: the gloves are off". October 23, 2019. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
  17. ↑ "Google's Head of Quantum Computing Hardware Resigns". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  18. ↑ "Ex-Google quantum chief joins Simmons' silicon startup". InnovationAus. September 29, 2020. Retrieved September 29, 2020.
  19. ↑ "President Trump Announces Appointments to President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology". The White House. March 25, 2026. Retrieved March 26, 2026.
  20. ↑ "California physicist and Nobel laureate John Martinis won't quit on quantum computers". Los Angeles Times. October 9, 2025. Retrieved October 10, 2025.
  21. ↑ "Qolab Spearheads Hardware Development for DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative". HPCwire. Retrieved July 19, 2026.
  22. 1 2 Rehman, Mohib Ur (December 23, 2025). "Qolab Strengthens Position with Strategic Partnerships and Global Expansion in 2025". The Quantum Insider.
  23. ↑ Warfield, Win (July 13, 2026). "Qolab Raises $54.2M Led by UC Investments to Advance Quantum Processors". citybiz.
  24. ↑ Abdel-Kareem, Mohamed (February 23, 2026). "NQFF and Qolab Collaborate on Wafer-Scale Cryogenic Filters for Quantum Scaling". Quantum Computing Report.
  25. ↑ Marias, Stephen Las (December 29, 2025). "Nobel Laureate John Martinis Launches Quantum Manufacturing Alliance". EE Times Asia.
  26. ↑ "Fritz London Memorial Prize". phy.duke.edu. Retrieved April 21, 2020.
  27. ↑ Gibney, Elizabeth (2019). "John Martinis Quantum builder". Nature. Retrieved December 22, 2025.
  28. ↑ "John Stewart Bell Prize". Retrieved May 3, 2021.
  29. ↑ Andrew N. Cleland; Steven M. Girvin (May 27, 2026). "Profile of John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis: 2025 Nobel laureates in Physics". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 123 (22). doi:10.1073/pnas.2604018123. ISSN 0027-8424. Wikidata Q140042378.
  30. ↑ "President Milanović Decorates Prof. John Matthew Martinis with the Grand Order of King Dmitar Zvonimir with Sash and Star". Ured predsjednika (in Croatian). July 13, 2026.
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