Building Quantum Computers at Semiconductor Scale | John Martinis on Qolab + Superconducting Qubits

About this episode

What does it actually take to build a quantum computer that can scale to millions of qubits? Learn more about Qolab here: https://qolab.ai/ In this episode, we speak with John Martinis, recipient of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics. Martinis is a pioneer in superconducting quantum computing and led the team of engineers at Google Quantum AI during the development of their Sycamore chip, which was the first to demonstrate “Quantum Supremacy,” the outperformance of a quantum computer compared to a classical supercomputer. John is now the co-founder of Qolab, a company developing new approaches to building scalable superconducting quantum circuits. Martinis discusses why scaling quantum computers is fundamentally an engineering and manufacturing problem, and why the next generation of quantum hardware may require rethinking how the chips themselves are designed and fabricated. We explore the challenges of building superconducting qubits, from fabrication and packaging to control electronics, wiring, power dissipation, and the subtle imperfections that can determine whether a quantum chip works at all. Martinis explains why adding more qubits is not simply a matter of making existin