STOCKHOLM, Oct 8 — United States (US)-based scientists John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis won the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics for "experiments that revealed quantum physics in action", paving the way for the development of the next generation of digital technologies.
"My feelings are that I am completely stunned. Of course, it had never occurred to me in any way that this might be the basis of a Nobel Prize.
"I am speaking on my cell phone, and I suspect that you are too, and one of the underlying reasons that the cell phone works is because of all this work," Clarke told the Nobel press conference by telephone on Tuesday.
'New surprises' in century-old field of quantum mechanics
Quantum mechanical behaviours are well studied at the level of the incredibly small — atoms and sub-atomic particles — but are often seen as bizarre and unintuitive compared with classical physics and its far larger scale.
The Nobel winners conducted experiments in the mid-1980s using an electronic circuit built from superconductors and demonstrated that quantum mechanics could also influence everyday objects under specific conditions.
"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," said the Nobel Committee for Physics' chair Olle Eriksson.
Quantum technology is already ubiquitous, with transistors in computer microchips an everyday example.
"This year's Nobel Prize in Physics has provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers, and quantum sensors," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards the prize, said in a statement.
Quantum computers utilise principles of quantum mechanics to perform complex calculations, predict outcomes, and conduct analyses that, in some cases, could take traditional computers millions of years.
The field has the potential to help solve some of humanity's most pressing concerns, like tackling climate change. But it also faces challenges, including improving the accuracy of its chips, and timelines for commercially viable quantum computing remain disputed.
Two of winning trio have links to Google
British-born Clarke is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in the US.
Devoret, who was born in France and was congratulated on X (formerly Twitter) by French President Emmanuel Macron, is a professor at Yale University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, also in the US, where Martinis is also a professor.
Martinis, an American, headed Google's Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab until 2020. At Google, he was part of the research team that in 2019 said they had achieved "quantum supremacy", in which a computer harnessing the properties of sub-atomic particles did a far better job of solving a problem than the world's most powerful supercomputer.
Devoret, besides his professorship, is also the chief scientist of Google Quantum AI. It is the second straight year that a Nobel has been won by scientists with Google ties.
The 2024 chemistry prize was awarded to Demis Hassabis and John Jumper at Google DeepMind, while Geoffrey Hinton, who worked for Google for more than a decade, won the Physics Prize the same year.
Physics second Nobel Prize awarded this week
The Nobel Physics Prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and includes a prize sum totalling 11 million Swedish crowns (RM4.92 million) that is shared among the winners if there are several, as is often the case.
The Prizes were established through the will of industrialist Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), who amassed a fortune from his invention of dynamite. Since 1901, with occasional interruptions, they have annually recognised achievements in science, literature, and peace. Economics was a later addition.
Physics was the first category mentioned in Nobel's will, likely reflecting the field's prominence during his lifetime. Today, the Nobel Prize in Physics remains widely regarded as the most prestigious award in the discipline.
Past winners include some of the most influential figures in the history of science, like Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrödinger, Max Planck, and Niels Bohr, the latter three pioneers of quantum theory.
In keeping with tradition, physics is the second Nobel Prize to be awarded this week, following the announcement of two American and one Japanese scientist winning the medicine prize for breakthroughs in understanding the immune system. The chemistry prize is due next, on Wednesday.
The science, literature, and economics prizes are presented to the laureates by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on December 10, the anniversary of Nobel's death, followed by a lavish banquet at the Stockholm City Hall.
The Peace Prize, which will be announced on Friday, is awarded in a separate ceremony in Oslo, Norway.
