What is the primary goal of the MARQUIS institute?

The institute aims to reinvent the materials and manufacturing processes for Josephson junctions to enable the production of larger-scale, useful quantum computers.

How much funding is the project receiving?

The project is receiving $27.9 million in funding from the National Science Foundation over a five-year period.

Princeton Leads New $27.9M Quantum Computing Initiative

Q: Which organizations are participating in the research?

Participating institutions include Princeton, Cornell, MIT, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford, Dartmouth, NY Creates, Michigan State, and the University of Iowa, with industry advisory board members including Google and NVIDIA.

Princeton Leads Federal Effort to Advance Quantum Hardware

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) announced today that Princeton University will head a new initiative to solve the most stubborn problems in quantum computing hardware. This project, known as the MARQUIS institute, represents a massive push to change how we manufacture processors. It will receive $27.9 million in funding over the next five years.

At the center of this project is Nathalie de Leon, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton. She will lead a team of experts from nine different universities. Their primary goal is to rethink the materials used to build quantum processors. For roughly twenty-five years, the industry has relied on essentially the same set of materials. This approach worked fine for small, academic prototypes, but it fails when trying to build systems at a larger, more useful scale.

Solving the Manufacturing Bottleneck

Quantum computers use tiny circuit elements called Josephson junctions to process information. These junctions consist of three metallic layers, with a thin layer of oxidized metal just a few atoms thick in the middle. Since the late 1990s, the field has leaned on aluminum and aluminum oxide to build these junctions. This method is now seen as a major barrier to progress.

The MARQUIS institute aims to break through this limit. The acronym stands for Manufacturable and Resilient superconducting Quantum Information Systems. Researchers involved in the project include teams from Princeton, Cornell, MIT, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford, Dartmouth, NY Creates, Michigan State, and the University of Iowa. They plan to look at materials science, device physics, and semiconductor processing to replace the old standard.

Industry and Academic Collaboration

Success in this space requires more than just pure science. It requires industrial-grade manufacturing knowledge. The advisory board for the institute includes heavy hitters from the private sector such as Google Quantum AI, NVIDIA, Applied Materials, Oxford Instruments, and Bluefors. MIT Lincoln Laboratory is also represented.

This mix of academic rigor and industry experience is intentional. Experts in semiconductor fabrication often possess knowledge that typical quantum researchers lack, but this information is frequently locked away in private corporate labs. The institute wants to bridge that gap. By creating standard testing methods and shared test beds, the researchers hope to build a pipeline that moves academic ideas toward real-world application.

Building on Recent Successes

Nathalie de Leon is well-positioned to lead this charge. Last year, she and her colleagues at Princeton published a major breakthrough in qubit materials. Their redesigned superconducting qubits performed fifteen times better than current industry standards. That work involved a deep collaboration between engineering and chemistry departments, proving that interdisciplinary teams can solve long-standing puzzles.

Nobel laureate Michel Devoret, a senior investigator in the new institute, has previously described the quest for better superconducting qubits as a graveyard of failed ideas. He has backed the team at Princeton for their willingness to tackle high-risk, high-reward problems. The new institute will test these designs in mid-scale processors. This acts as a bridge between the small chips found in university labs and the massive processors that will eventually run global quantum algorithms.

The Path Forward for Quantum Computing

The NSF has committed $290 million total to eight different research institutes this year. These projects aim to translate decades of foundational research into practical, modern technology. Brian Stone, currently leading the NSF, noted that the time for focused, goal-oriented activity is now.

The MARQUIS institute will also build out education programs. The researchers know that creating better hardware is only half the battle. They must also train the next generation of scientists and engineers to handle these new tools. By the end of this five-year grant, the goal is to have established a new manufacturing standard for the quantum industry. If they succeed, it will change how the world builds the machines of the next century.