Quantum computing milestones
118 milestones in the history of quantum computing, from the first ideas in 1980 to this year. Each one links to its sources, with a literal quote checked against the original page.
2026
- Oct 7, 2026 DARPA moves Atom Computing, Diraq, IBM and IonQ to its final quantum test stage
- Aug 28, 2026 Pasqal lists on Nasdaq after merging with a blank-check company
- Jul 30, 2026 IBM and partners claim quantum advantage with built-in accuracy checks Disputed
- Jul 23, 2026 IBM agrees to buy HRL Laboratories to add silicon-spin qubits
- Jul 7, 2026 Oratomic raises $300 million to build fault-tolerant neutral-atom computers
- Jul 2, 2026 IQM lists on Nasdaq after merging with a blank-check company
- Jun 22, 2026 Trump signs executive orders on quantum computing and post-quantum security
- Jun 4, 2026 Quantinuum raises $1.68 billion in its Nasdaq IPO
- Jun 3, 2026 Oxford Quantum Circuits raises £260 million in a Series C round
- Jun 2, 2026 Microsoft's Majorana 2 chip reports 20-second parity lifetimes Disputed
- May 21, 2026 US offers $2 billion to nine quantum companies in exchange for equity stakes
- Mar 31, 2026 Caltech and Oratomic estimate Shor's algorithm could run on 10,000 atomic qubits Claimed
- Mar 31, 2026 Google says elliptic-curve encryption could be broken with under 500,000 qubits Claimed
- Mar 27, 2026 Xanadu lists on Nasdaq and the Toronto exchange after a SPAC merger
- Mar 24, 2026 Google Quantum AI adds neutral atoms alongside its superconducting qubits
- Mar 17, 2026 UK commits up to £2 billion to buy and develop large-scale quantum computers
- Feb 17, 2026 Infleqtion goes public on the NYSE through a SPAC merger
- Feb 12, 2026 Iceberg Quantum estimates RSA-2048 could be broken with under 100,000 qubits Claimed
- Jan 26, 2026 IonQ agrees to buy chip foundry SkyWater Technology for about $1.8 billion
- Jan 7, 2026 D-Wave agrees to buy gate-model start-up Quantum Circuits for $550 million
2025
- Dec 22, 2025 China's Zuchongzhi 3.2 runs error correction below the surface-code threshold
- Nov 12, 2025 IBM unveils its Nighthawk and Loon processors and backs a quantum advantage tracker Claimed
- Nov 10, 2025 Harvard-led team combines the key parts of a fault-tolerant atom quantum computer
- Nov 6, 2025 DARPA advances 11 companies to Stage B of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative
- Nov 5, 2025 Princeton makes superconducting qubits that hold their state for over a millisecond
- Nov 5, 2025 Quantinuum launches Helios, a 98-qubit trapped-ion quantum computer
- Nov 4, 2025 US Energy Department renews its five quantum research centers with $625 million
- Nov 3, 2025 Xanadu agrees to go public through a SPAC merger valuing it at $3 billion
- Oct 22, 2025 Google reports "Quantum Echoes", which it calls the first verifiable quantum advantage
- Oct 21, 2025 IonQ reports 99.99% two-qubit gate fidelity, which it calls a world record Claimed
- Oct 7, 2025 Clarke, Devoret and Martinis win the Nobel Prize for quantum effects in circuits
- Sep 25, 2025 HSBC and IBM report a quantum-aided gain in bond trading predictions Disputed
- Sep 24, 2025 Caltech traps 6,100 atom qubits in a single array of laser tweezers
- Sep 15, 2025 Harvard and MIT keep a 3,000-qubit atom array running for over two hours
- Sep 10, 2025 PsiQuantum raises $1 billion at a $7 billion valuation
- Sep 8, 2025 Infleqtion agrees to go public through a $1.8 billion SPAC merger
- Sep 4, 2025 Quantinuum raises about $600 million at a $10 billion valuation
- Sep 3, 2025 IQM raises $320 million in a Series B round led by Ten Eleven Ventures
- Aug 12, 2025 China's Jiuzhang 4.0 reports photonic quantum advantage with up to 3,050 photons
- Jul 14, 2025 QuEra, Harvard and MIT distill magic states on error-protected logical qubits
- Jul 2, 2025 European Commission adopts a strategy to make the EU a quantum leader by 2030
- Jun 9, 2025 IonQ agrees to acquire Oxford Ionics in a $1.075 billion deal
- May 20, 2025 D-Wave makes its 4,400-qubit Advantage2 annealer generally available
- May 2025 Google researcher estimates RSA-2048 could be broken with under a million qubits
- Apr 3, 2025 DARPA selects companies for the first stage of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative
- Mar 12, 2025 D-Wave claims its annealer beat a supercomputer on a materials simulation Disputed
- Mar 3, 2025 China's 105-qubit Zuchongzhi 3.0 claims a larger quantum advantage
- Feb 26, 2025 Amazon unveils Ocelot, a chip built on error-resistant "cat qubits"
- Feb 19, 2025 Microsoft unveils Majorana 1, a chip it says uses topological qubits Disputed
2024
- Dec 9, 2024 Google's Willow chip shows errors can shrink as qubits grow
- Nov 19, 2024 Microsoft and Atom Computing entangle 24 logical qubits made from atoms Claimed
- Aug 13, 2024 NIST publishes the first post-quantum encryption standards
- Apr 3, 2024 Microsoft and Quantinuum report logical qubits with far fewer errors Claimed
2023
- Dec 6, 2023 Harvard-led team runs algorithms on up to 48 logical qubits made of atoms
- Dec 4, 2023 IBM unveils Condor, a 1,121-qubit chip, and the more accurate Heron
- Jun 14, 2023 IBM reports useful results from a noisy 127-qubit chip before error correction Disputed
- Feb 22, 2023 Google shows a larger error-correcting code can make fewer errors
2022
- Nov 9, 2022 IBM unveils Osprey, a 433-qubit quantum processor
- Oct 4, 2022 Physics Nobel goes to Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger for entanglement experiments
- Aug 8, 2022 D-Wave goes public on the New York Stock Exchange through a SPAC merger
- Aug 2022 Classical computers catch up with Google's 2019 quantum supremacy task
- Jul 5, 2022 NIST picks the first four quantum-resistant encryption algorithms
- Jun 1, 2022 Xanadu claims quantum advantage with Borealis, a programmable photonic machine Disputed
- Mar 2, 2022 Rigetti Computing goes public on Nasdaq through a SPAC merger
2021
- Nov 30, 2021 Honeywell Quantum Solutions and Cambridge Quantum merge to form Quantinuum
- Nov 16, 2021 IBM unveils Eagle, a 127-qubit quantum processor
- Oct 1, 2021 IonQ starts trading on the New York Stock Exchange after a SPAC merger
- Jun 2021 Chinese team reports quantum advantage on its Zuchongzhi superconducting chip
- Mar 8, 2021 Researchers retract a 2018 Nature paper on signs of Majorana particles
2020
2019
- Dec 2, 2019 Amazon announces Braket, a cloud service for several makers' quantum computers
- Oct 23, 2019 Google claims quantum supremacy with its 53-qubit Sycamore processor Disputed
- May 23, 2019 Gidney and Ekerå estimate 20 million qubits could break RSA-2048 in eight hours
- Jan 8, 2019 IBM unveils Q System One, what it calls the first integrated quantum computing system
2018
2017
2016
2014
2013
2012
2011
2009
2007
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
- Oct 1996 Threshold theorem shows noisy quantum computers can still compute reliably
- Aug 23, 1996 Seth Lloyd proves Feynman's conjecture on simulating quantum systems
- May 1996 Lov Grover finds a quantum algorithm for faster unstructured search
- 1996 Steane, Calderbank and Shor find a recipe for building quantum codes