TL;DR
Get business pricing on monitors, keyboards and dev gear
- Business-only prices and quantity discounts
- Tax-exempt purchasing
- Multiple users, one account, clear invoices
Charles Black, director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s C2QA, is leading research into superconducting materials and manufacturing approaches for quantum computing. The center reports transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, while work on scalable, fault-tolerant systems remains ongoing.
Charles Black, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is leading a 28-institution effort to improve quantum hardware through materials research and manufacturing-focused design. A center project has reported superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, while C2QA’s broader goal of scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems remains a research objective.
C2QA researchers are studying superconducting materials, including tantalum, to understand how material properties affect qubit performance. The source report says Princeton University researchers built qubits using tantalum instead of aluminum and niobium, and used Brookhaven facilities to examine how tantalum surface oxidation relates to performance. The team reported qubit lifetimes above one millisecond, described in the report as the longest ever reported; that superlative is the report’s characterization.
Black became C2QA director in June 2025. The center launched in 2020 and brings together researchers from 28 institutions spanning national laboratories, universities and industry. Its work combines materials research with modular system architectures, with the stated aim of enabling quantum systems that can scale and tolerate faults.
The report connects Black’s background in materials science and semiconductor manufacturing to C2QA’s approach. He spent nearly two decades at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials, including nine years as its director, and worked at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center from 1996 to 2006. C2QA is investigating quantum devices made with materials compatible with silicon-based manufacturing, which could align future hardware production with existing capabilities.
Materials and Manufacturing Shape Qubit Research
Longer-lived qubits could help researchers address one of the problems in building useful quantum computers: quantum information is vulnerable to errors and loss. The reported result is a materials research milestone, but it does not by itself establish that a large, fault-tolerant computer can be built. C2QA’s stated program also includes modular system design and manufacturing, reflecting the range of challenges between improving an individual qubit and producing a scalable system.
The manufacturing focus matters because laboratory devices must eventually be made consistently and in larger quantities for systems to grow. C2QA’s interest in silicon-compatible materials draws on manufacturing methods developed for conventional electronics. Whether those methods can be adapted successfully to quantum hardware remains a technical question under study.
From Transmons to Tantalum
Superconducting transmon qubits became a prominent quantum computing architecture after researchers at Yale University developed the design, according to the report. For years, many transmons were made using aluminum and niobium. C2QA brought together physicists and materials scientists to investigate whether the materials themselves were limiting further performance gains.
The center’s researchers turned to tantalum partly because it has fewer oxidation states suspected of harming qubit performance. Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source II provided capabilities to characterize materials and study surface oxidation. The work links those measurements to qubit performance, while Black’s earlier semiconductor research informs the center’s attention to fabrication and production.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
— Charles Black, C2QA director
Scaling Beyond the Qubit Result
The report does not specify the number of qubits in the devices, provide a direct comparison of their lifetimes with earlier devices, or detail the measurement conditions. It also does not establish how the reported performance will translate into larger processors. A qubit lifetime above one millisecond is a device-level result; system scale, error correction and reliable manufacturing involve additional challenges.
It remains unclear from the source what production volumes C2QA’s silicon-compatible approach could support, when such devices might be manufactured at scale, or what milestones the center expects next. The report describes these as ongoing research aims rather than completed outcomes.
C2QA’s Next Research Milestones
C2QA’s work continues across its member institutions, with research focused on superconducting materials, device fabrication and modular architectures. The source does not announce a specific upcoming release date or project milestone. Further results will be needed to show whether material improvements and manufacturing-compatible designs can work together in larger systems.
For now, the reported tantalum qubit performance offers a research lead for the center to investigate. The next relevant evidence will include details on reproducibility, integration into multi-qubit devices and progress toward fault-tolerant system designs.
Key Questions
Who is Charles Black?
Charles Black is director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage. He was named to the role in June 2025 and previously led Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials.
What did C2QA researchers report?
The report says C2QA researchers achieved superconducting transmon qubit lifetimes exceeding one millisecond using research involving tantalum. It does not provide full device counts or measurement comparisons in the supplied material.
Why is C2QA studying tantalum?
Researchers are investigating whether superconducting materials affect qubit performance. The report says tantalum has fewer oxidation states suspected of degrading performance, and that the team studied how oxidation of its surface relates to qubit behavior.
Does the reported result mean scalable quantum computers are ready?
No. The result concerns qubit lifetimes. C2QA’s goal of scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems also depends on challenges such as integrating devices, controlling errors and manufacturing hardware consistently.
Source: rss
Fall Picks
fall essentials
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
