Northwestern joins renewed $37.5 million NSF quantum institute

Computer scientist Nikos Hardavellas will lead Northwestern’s contribution to regional effort advancing modular quantum computing

Northwestern University will play a key role in the next phase of a major regional initiative working to make quantum computing more scalable and useful.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has renewed the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign-led Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Hybrid Quantum Architectures and Networks (HQAN), providing $37.5 million over five years. Northwestern is part of the institute’s core regional cohort, together with Illinois, the University of Chicago and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, with Stanford University and the MIT Lincoln Laboratory providing critical capabilities.

Nikos Hardavellas, professor of computer science and computer engineering at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, will serve as Northwestern’s principal investigator through a subaward from Illinois. Hardavellas is also a member of the executive committee of Northwestern’s Institute for Quantum Information Research and Engineering (INQUIRE), the University-wide hub connecting researchers across quantum computing, communications, sensing and materials.

HQAN focuses on modular quantum computing: connecting smaller quantum processing units so they can work together as a more powerful system. This approach could overcome some of the difficulties of building a single, increasingly large quantum processor.

During HQAN’s second phase, Hardavellas and his Northwestern team will investigate algorithms and techniques for modular quantum processing across interconnected chips of varying qubit species, and develop software to optimize quantum computation while hiding this complexity from the user. Their work will make a decisive advance toward unlocking the full potential of distributed quantum computing.

“Modular quantum computing is the definitive way forward, as monolithic chips do not scale to the levels necessary to tackle important problems,” Hardavellas said.  At the same time, he notes, no single qubit technology simultaneously offers long coherence, low error rates, fast gates, high connectivity, and scalable, mature fabrication. “Hybrid modular quantum architectures provide a path to combine these technologies and enable performance impossible for any single modality alone,” he explained, noting that the approach is similar to how classical systems have evolved. A key consideration, he said, is how to automatically and optimally offload computation to chips of different qubit modalities and capabilities. “With HQAN, we set out to make fundamental advances in answering this question,” said Hardavellas.

The HQAN collaboration builds on Northwestern’s strengths in quantum science and engineering, drawing on the interdisciplinary research community fostered through INQUIRE. In particular, Hardavellas said, “we are fortunate to have Kate Smith, assistant professor of computer science and INQUIRE member, contributing her deep expertise in quantum systems to the effort.”

The renewed institute brings together 45 senior researchers from six institutions, along with 16 industry partners including Google, IBM, IonQ and Quantinuum. Its second phase will seek to demonstrate essential operations on modular quantum platforms while advancing the algorithms, compilers, error-correction methods and physical interconnections needed to make such systems practical.

Northwestern’s participation builds on the University’s growing portfolio of quantum research and regional partnerships. Through INQUIRE, researchers from engineering, physics, chemistry, materials science and other fields work across disciplinary boundaries to advance quantum information science and train the next generation of quantum scientists and engineers.