750 companies surveyed on integrating quantum into their businesses

This is a preview issue of Quantum Campus, which shares the latest in quantum science and technology. Read by more than 1,800 researchers, we publish on Fridays and are always looking for news from across the country. Want to see your work featured? Submit your ideas to the editor.

Quantum readiness

Several institutions delivered reports on progress in quantum computing and what is necessary for it to develop “from a scientific curiosity to a technical reality,” as MIT’s William Oliver put it in an update from MIT’s Sloan School of Business. 

In a report from December 8, McKinsey reviewed various approaches to creating robust, error-resilient qubits, focusing on error suppression, error detection and correction, and error mitigation. It also developed a set of criteria for assessing full-stack error-correction strategies, as companies consider future quantum systems in their technology roadmaps.

IBM, meanwhile, released its Quantum Readiness Index for 2025, based on a survey of more than 750 executives. Among the most striking findings:

• The average “readiness score” for these organizations is 28 on a 100-point scale.

• Only 10 percent of the organizations were considered “quantum ready.”

• About 80 percent of the organizations are partnering with academic institutions for insights, skill development, and recruitment of talent.

• Aerospace companies are investing the most in quantum research and readiness.

• Organizations are not confident which use cases will emerge first, so they are hedging their investments across areas like simulation, search, and algebraic problems.

The Quantum Readiness Index scored organizations based on strategy (actionable quantum intelligence, capturing quantum business value, securing quantum intellectual property, regulations and standards); technology (quantum-classical orchestration, AI/machine learning computational models, DevSecOps for quantum applications); and operations (governance of quantum roadmap, quantum talent strategy, quantum innovation process, high-velocity research and development).

Read the full report.

Entangled photons at room temperature

Stanford University demonstrated a nanoscale optical device that generates entangled photons at room temperature. It is built from a patterned thin film of molybdenum diselenide on a nanopatterned silicon substrate. The photons can then be used “to impart spin on electrons that are the heart of quantum computing,” according Feng Pan, a postdoc on the project and first author on the paper.

This work was published in Nature Communications.

Magnetized quantum dots

Materials scientists at the University of Oklahoma magnetized quantum dots by doping them with manganese. The quantum dots were based on cesium lead bromide perovskite. The doped dots showed significantly improved luminescent efficiency, making them candidates for future spintronics and imaging applications, according to the researchers in an announcement from the university. 

This work appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Characterizing noise

Researchers at Johns Hopkins’ Applied Physics Lab introduced a new framework for characterizing and controlling noise when running quantum calculations. It is built on a “mathematically compact and beautiful” foundation of symmetric quantum evolution via root space decompositions and filter function formalism.

The technique allows users to “classify noise into two different categories, which tells us how to mitigate it. If it causes the system to move from one rung to another, we can apply one technique; if it doesn’t, we apply another,” said graduate student William Watkins.

This work was published in Physical Review Letters.

Quickbits

• Superconductivity and suppressed monoclinic distortion in FeTe films enabled by higher-order epitaxy (Nature Communications)

• Challenges and opportunities for quantum information hardware (Science)

• Silicon Catalyst partners with six organizations to provide in-kind space and resources to quantum-related portfolio companies

Quantum Campus is edited by Bill Bell, a science writer and marketing consultant who has covered physics and high-performance computing for more than 25 years. Disclosure statement.