Engineering the Quantum Era: From the Discovery of the Nobel Prize to a Technology Platform

   The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 delivered a message with immediate relevance for engineers: quantum behavior can be realized in engineered circuits. John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis “for the discovery of macroscopic quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization in an electric circuit.” This recognition is not only a milestone in fundamental physics but also a clear signal that quantum phenomena can be approached through design choices, fabrication routes, measurement strategy, and system integration—the everyday language of engineering research.

    For an engineering community, the significance is not simply what was discovered but how it reframes participation. Once a circuit exhibits tunneling and discrete energy levels, quantum science becomes more than a theoretical construct: it becomes something that can be specified, tested, and iteratively improved. The frontier that opens here is not a claim that quantum systems are “solved,” but that they are increasingly engineerable, and therefore, reachable when physics is translated into performance metrics, process discipline, and reliability thinking.

Where engineers enter the quantum field

    Quantum circuits operate in the microwave regime, and their performance critically depends on the resonator design, coupling, impedance environment, filtering, shielding, and amplification. In practice, the “quantum” part is inseparable from radio frequency (RF) engineering decisions that shape readout fidelity and stability (Kurniawati et al. 2023, Rahayu et al. 2021, Sholeh et al. 2020).

    Materials science and surface/interface engineering Practical device limits are often traced to surfaces, interfaces, thin films, and microscopic defects. This places deposition, cleaning, passivation, metrology, and microstructural control at the center of progress. This is mostly because improved material quality can translate into improved coherence and consistency [Udhiarto et al., 2014; Whulanza et al., 2015; Suwandi et al., 2014].

    Micro/nanofabrication and manufacturing quality. Once quantum systems become circuits, they inherit manufacturing realities: process windows, run-to-run variation, wafer-level screening, and yield learning. Therefore, quantum engineering requires the same discipline used in advanced manufacturing, such as statistical process control, failure analysis, and design-for-manufacture. (Whulanza, 2015; Suwandi, 2019; Rahman et al., 2025).

    Cryogenics, instrumentation, and metrology Experiments requiring extreme environmental control and precision measurement The transcript’s emphasis on instrumentation as a pathway to quantum insight reflects a key point: cryogenic integration, packaging, calibration, and low-noise measurement are not peripheral. They often determine what phenomena can be observed and what performance can be validated [2023]. Hernandez et al., 2023].

    Control, computer engineering, and software-defined (SD) experimentation. The operation of quantum hardware requires layered control stacks: waveform generation, timing synchronization, feedback, calibration routines, and automation. As noted in the transcript, this work sits near the “bottom” of a computing stack. However, the system value depends on how engineers integrate diagnostics, control, and reliability practices into repeatable workflows [Nugroho et al., 2023; Siregar, 2025; Nugroho, 2023].

    Reliability, noise engineering, and system integration The “enemy” of engineered quantum behavior is electromagnetic, thermal, material, and even packaging-related noise. Noise modeling, root-cause analysis, and reliability frameworks are as important as physics derivations. Scaling also introduces the following system-level questions: interconnects, shielding, crosstalk, modularity, maintainability, and qualification protocols (Aprilia et al., 2024; Chaicayet et al., 2025; Putri et al., 2025).

    For the IJTech community, this is an invitation to contribute with methods already familiar in other technology domains, such as materials optimization, process development, design-for-manufacture, reliability engineering, and system integration. Therefore, the emerging identity of “quantum engineering” is not an add-on to physics; it is a convergent space where multiple disciplines can drive measurable progress.