Building Quantum’s Next Century

Human understanding of nature on its smallest scales fundamentally changed 100 years ago with the dawn of quantum mechanics. The scientific revolution that followed seeded technologies integral to modern life, from microchips and fiber optics to MRI and GPS.

As quantum science enters its second century, researchers are chasing new capabilities in computing, sensing and cryptography. Science philanthropies, meanwhile, are asking where they can have the greatest impact. A Science Philanthropy Alliance (SPA) meeting, which The Kavli Foundation hosted, explored that question.

A recurring theme was what the next 100 years of quantum will demand from science philanthropy in terms of partnership models, risk-taking and community-building. As SPA President France Córdova said in her opening remarks, “Today, philanthropy asks itself, ‘Where can I make the most impact in this field already well-funded by government and industry? What is not being funded that would move quantum science ahead?’”

One example is quantum geometry in 3D materials (QG3D), a scientific program funded by The Kavli Foundation, the Klaus Tschira Foundation and independent philanthropist Kevin Wells. The collaboration offers a glimpse into how science philanthropies are working together to support some of quantum’s most challenging and uncertain questions.

A Test Case: QG3D
As the name suggests, QG3D seeks to advance the field of quantum geometry, which explores how electrons behave and interact within a material. Researchers hope those insights will open new possibilities across a range of quantum phenomena, including high-temperature superconductors — a long-sought “holy grail” in quantum physics and engineering.

Through QG3D, an international team is applying quantum geometry to devise novel, complex materials across three dimensions. The upshot could be better control over electron behavior, potentially paving the way toward higher-temperature superconductors.

The ordinary conduction of electricity suffers from significant energy loss as electrons jostle with the materials in wires, generating waste heat. During superconductivity, however, normally repelling electrons join up and move frictionlessly. Superconductivity would allow perfectly lossless power transfer, dramatically increasing energy efficiency.

But superconducting electrical equipment remains economically impractical because creating the quantum state required for superconductivity in known materials still demands extremely low temperatures. Though researchers have gradually pushed those temperatures higher, conventional superconductivity may never reach room temperature in realistic materials. Rather than continuing to pursue the same approaches, quantum geometry offers a new path to superconductivity. The high electron densities possible in 3D materials may make that path especially promising.

This kind of high-risk, foundational research can be difficult to support through conventional funding channels. “We’re always looking for the most interesting and potentially transformative basic science ideas that may be too early stage or too risky for other funders,” said Jeff Miller, science program officer for nanoscience at The Kavli Foundation.

Miller described Kavli’s interest in catalyzing “step changes,” advances that expand what is scientifically possible rather than incrementally improving existing approaches. “Challenging the received wisdom at such a fundamental level that it expands the boundaries of basic scientific knowledge often enables new solutions to downstream technical problems,” he said. The QG3D project reflects that philosophy.

By pooling their support, QG3D’s three funders were able to commit sustained resources to an ambitious scientific effort. Philanthropic funding can also be more flexible than traditional academic grants or industry-driven programs, allowing researchers to adjust course as new insights emerge.

“The unique role of philanthropy is something really important today,” said Kavli President and CEO Cynthia Friend, who assumed the role of Chair of the SPA Board of Directors in January. Philanthropy can often be more “nimble to get funds out the door quickly,” she said, allowing researchers “to do course correction in their work and to really respond to the needs of the community.”

Forging Partnerships
Miller explained that The Kavli Foundation sought partners to support QG3D in a coordinated way. “Partnerships have the opportunity to multiply impact,” he said.

For early-stage, inherently risky projects, collaboration offers more than additional funding, Miller said. “The projects that we’re interested in are very speculative,” he said. “By bringing together partners, each partner brings its own little bit of credibility. Not only can you spread the risk among the partners, but you can actually reduce the risk because this credibility snowballs and attracts interest from more parties.” The involvement of both the Klaus Tschira Foundation and Wells reflects that dynamic. “We have worked very hard to promote strategic partnerships,” said Friend.

The first phase of the QG3D project used artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify candidate materials expected to exhibit superconductivity through conventional means. The approach is already beginning to bear fruit. In a recent publication, members of the QG3D collaboration experimentally confirmed two superconductors that had first been predicted through the project’s machine-learning-guided discovery pipeline. The team is now moving into identifying unconventional superconductors, followed by synthesis and testing of the most promising materials.

Miller said progress on the project has been rapid: “I’m already able to say some of the things now that I thought I’d be able to say in five years.”

Where efforts in quantum’s second century, including QG3D, may lead remains to be seen. History suggests that transformative technologies often emerge only after decades of sustained basic research.

For example, the transistor — now the backbone of modern electronics — emerged only after decades of incremental insight and experimentation. Semiconductor materials were demonstrated in simple radio components such as “cat’s whisker” detectors in the early 1900s. Quantum mechanics later helped explain their behavior. Yet it was not until 1947, more than 20 years after the theoretical foundations had taken shape, that the breakthrough leading to modern transistors occurred, built on decades of basic science.

At the dawn of quantum’s second century, many hoped-for technologies may still be in an early, pre-breakthrough phase. Moving them forward will require sustained support for foundational science. For frontier science, that continuity may be as important as the breakthrough itself.

“You’ll never know if it’s going to work or not without providing that kind of continuity,” said Miller.