The Boston Globe’s Tech Power Players list for 2026 features numerous MIT faculty, researchers and alumni. In response to a question about the most promising area in the Boston tech scene right now, President Sally Kornbluth shared: “There isn’t a more important technological field right now than quantum science and technology, and the Boston area has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world.”
Reporting from MIT, GBH’s Kirk Carapezza highlights how MIT is launching a “major effort to advance quantum computing, with a state investment of $25 million to help build a new research facility in Cambridge.” Said President Sally Kornbluth: “Everything you can think of that uses classical computing now, think about quantum speeding it up, making it more efficient. We think about the AI revolution and the expenses of AI and data centers. This is going to be impacted by a whole new different way of computing.”
President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced the establishment of a new quantum hub at MIT, called the Quantum Systems Laboratory, which is aimed at enabling scientists to undertake impactful work applying quantum research across practical domains, including life sciences and national defense, reports Aaron Pressman for The Boston Globe. “Greater Boston has the greatest concentration of quantum talent anywhere in the world,” said Kornbluth. “It has been clear to us for some time that if we could magnify all of that talent with the right facilities and shared quantum toolbox, we could establish Massachusetts as a national hub for quantum innovation.”
To help establish Massachusetts and the nation as a quantum leader, President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced plans for a new share-used quantum research facility at MIT, writes Axios reporter Steph Solis. The Quantum Systems Laboratory would “host teams focused on using quantum mechanics for life sciences and defense research, but what would set the MIT project apart from existing labs is its ability to power direct communication among multiple quantum computers,” Solis explains.
Thanks in part to a $25 investment from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, MIT plans to open the Quantum Systems Laboratory, which will “provide quantum experts from across Massachusetts access to quantum hardware and specialized equipment,” reports Lucia Maffei for the Boston Business Journal. "This is good news for MIT, good news for Massachusetts and, frankly, good news for the world," said Governor Maura Healey. "This is really setting the stage to have cutting-edge quantum computers be able to operate in that building," said President Sally Kornbluth. "There will be many people throughout Massachusetts who come to use this facility. It's really a hub to make Massachusetts a quantum center.”
State House News Service reporter Katie Castellani writes that President Sally Kornbluth and Governor Maura Healey announced a new shared-use quantum facility at MIT, the Quantum Systems Laboratory (QSL), aimed at providing scientists the opportunity to apply quantum research across various sectors, including defense and the life sciences. The QSL will “bring quantum computers together with quantum sensors and peripherals through physical channels that transfer information,” Castellani explains.
MIT researchers have developed a new method for precisely moving columns of individual atoms within a material, which could give rise to exotic quantum properties and shed light on quantum behavior, reports Tim Wogan for Physics World. “I’m excited because of the scalability of this that allows us to look at the interactions between the defects rather than just creating a defect itself,” explains Prof. Frances Ross.
Prof. William Oliver speaks with Scientific American reporter Adam Becker about the future of quantum computing. “Quantum computing is real, it’s happening, and it’s going to take time,” Oliver says. “It’s going to take engineering, and there’s still science to do as well. It’s not all buttoned up.” He adds that, in the future, we will be using quantum computers "to better understand, from a scientific standpoint, the world around us.”
In an effort to defend medical devices against quantum attacks, MIT researchers have engineered an ultra-efficient microchip that can protect wireless biomedical devices, such as insulin pumps and pacemakers, reports Katie Hunt for CNN. The microchip, which is around the size of an extremely fine needle tip, “includes built-in protection needed for post-quantum cybersecurity. The device achieved between 20 and 60 times higher energy efficiency than other post-quantum security techniques.”
MIT researchers have “achieved a breakthrough towards building scalable quantum computers,” reports Prabhat Ranjan Mishra for Interesting Engineering, using “cryoelectronics to control ion traps, a key step toward realizing scalable quantum computers.” The team says “this proof-of-principle experiment marks an important advancement toward building large-scale ion-trap quantum computing systems,” writes Mishra.
MIT is “taking a quantum leap with the launch of the new MIT Quantum Initiative (QMIT), reports State House News reporter Katie Castellani. “There isn't a more important technological field right now than quantum with its enormous potential for impact on both fundamental research and practical problems,” said President Sally Kornbluth during the launch event. “QMIT will help us to ask the right questions, identify the most critical problems and create a roadmap for developing quantum solutions that are both transformative and accessible.”
Prof. Anand Natarajan speaks with CNN reporter Lisa Eadicicco about the promise of quantum computing. “The big hope is that a quantum computer can simulate any sort of chemical or biological experiment you would do in the lab,” says Natarajan. He adds that quantum computing could be very influential for cryptography and cybersecurity, as it could be used to break codes. “That’s also a major motivation, to make sure that our adversaries cannot do it and that we have this capability.”
Prof. Peter Shor speaks with Katia Moskvitch and her nine-year-old son Kai of The Quantum Kid about how quantum technologies could be applied to developing climate change and sustainability solutions. Shor explains that quantum computers can be used for “simulating quantum mechanics, which would really help immensely in designing new materials, and new materials could be very useful for solving the climate crisis.”
Prof. Emeritus Daniel Kleppner, “an experimental physicist who helped to develop an atomic clock that became an essential part of global positioning systems (GPS),” has died at the age of 92, reports Dylan Loeb McClain for The New York Times. In addition to his work in atomic clocks, Kleppner also “helped to discover a rare fundamental state of matter predicted by Albert Einstein and his fellow theoretical physicist Satyendra Nath Bose,” writes McClain.
Prof. Emeritus Daniel Kleppner, a “highly honored physicist who developed technologies that helped pave the way for the Global Positioning System and whose foundational atomic discoveries helped open up the field of quantum computing,” has died at age 92, reports Anusha Mathur for The Washington Post. Prof. Wolfgang Ketterle explains that Kleppner’s research laid the groundwork for what “in the last 15 years has been developed into a new platform, a new approach for quantum computation. That has led to multimillion-dollar funding in multiple start-up companies in Europe and the U.S.”