Why everyone in quantum computing is buzzing about Google’s move into ‘neutral atoms’

Google Quantum AI has hired Adam Kaufman, a leading quantum researcher at NIST and JILA, to lead a new Boulder-based hardware team focused on neutral atom quantum computing, signaling the technology's arrival as a key player in the race to quantum utility. Neutral atom systems, which use individual atoms as qubits and run at room temperature, have attracted over $3.5 billion in funding for local startups in the Boulder area, and Google's move underscores the region's status as a global epicenter for atomic physics.

Adam Kaufman was already “physicist famous” before Google came calling this spring. A leading quantum researcher at the National Institute of Standards and Technology NIST and a fellow at JILA—a research institute for the physical sciences run by NIST and the University of Colorado, Boulder—Kaufman is an expert in the use of lasers to precisely control rare-earth atoms for timekeeping and information processing. In March, news that Google Quantum AI https://www.fastcompany.com/section/artificial-intelligence was hiring https://www.fastcompany.com/section/hiring Kaufman to lead a new Boulder-based hardware team sent shockwaves through the tight-knit community of experts in atomic physics and lasers in the area. Google’s quantum research program has until recently centered on superconducting qubits, or quantum bits, which use supercooled electronic circuits to mimic the quantum behavior of atoms. This approach has been considered the surest path to reaching fault-tolerant quantum computing—the moment when the technology moves from cool experiment to critical infrastructure https://www.fastcompany.com/91581596/its-time-to-stop-sleeping-on-quantum-computing-48-experts-on-what-to-watch-for-next . But an alternative technology is now gaining traction: so-called neutral atom quantum computers that use individual atoms as their qubits. The atoms are “neutral” because they have no net electrical charge, which means they don’t interact strongly with each other and can therefore be assembled into densely packed arrays that can be cooled and manipulated with lasers. These systems don’t require the massive cryogenic plants that are needed for superconducting computers—they can run at room temperature—and can scale to many thousands of qubits without increasing their footprint or needing to connect modular components. Outside of China, the epicenter of neutral atom computers and related trapped ion systems, which use charged atomic particles for qubits and share many of the same advantages, is in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, near Boulder, Colorado. Local startups pursuing these atom-based approaches have collectively raised more than $3.5 billion to date, much of it in the past year. Google’s Quantum AI division insists that for now, its Boulder program is small. In a Colorado Sun article https://coloradosun.com/2026/03/24/google-boulder-physicist-quantum-computing-colorado/ from March, a Google exec said Kaufman would start with a team of about 10 people and would maintain a lab at JILA. Today, industry insiders put the head count at two to five times that, which a company spokesperson neither confirms nor denies: “It’s a handful of people, not hundreds.” Google’s interest sends a clear signal: Neutral atom quantum computing has arrived. And while it may not replace superconducting as the leading approach, the technology is primed to be a key player in the race to quantum utility, the threshold where the value of quantum computers finally eclipses the cost of running them. Boulder ranks among the nation’s brainiest cities: More than 40% of its adult population holds an advanced degree. Thanks to NIST, JILA, and the University of Colorado, it’s also a global epicenter for atomic, molecular, and optical AMO physics. Hartmut Neven, Google VP of engineering and founder of its Quantum AI lab, called the area “one of the most sophisticated physics and engineering ecosystems in the world” in a blog post https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/neutral-atom-quantum-computers/ announcing the company’s neutral atom program. Boulder was actually one of the earliest outposts of quantum computing. In 1995, just a year after Peter Shor presented the first algorithms for a hypothetical quantum computer, the NIST researcher Dave Wineland demonstrated the first physical single-atom quantum logic gate. He later shared the 2012 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on quantum systems. Wineland’s former students and postdocs are now embedded throughout the region’s quantum landscape. Quantum companies headquartered in Colorado today include neutral atom specialists Atom Computing and Infleqtion NYSE: INFQ , and Quantinuum Nasdaq: QNT , which builds trapped ion systems. In May, all three companies signed letters of intent with the U.S. Department of Commerce worth up to $100 million apiece. IonQ, a trapped ion company based in College Park, Maryland, recently opened a lab in Boulder, as well. Google’s arrival on the scene is being hailed as a validation, not a threat—at least for the moment. “The rising engagement from major technology companies underscores that neutral atoms have become one of the most compelling architectures for scalable quantum computing and a leading pathway to utility-scale systems,” says Atom Computing’s founder and CEO, Ben Bloom. Pranav Gokhale, CTO and cofounder of Infleqtion, meanwhile, offers a sporting handshake. “We welcome them, and we look forward to advancing the industry together,” he says. Chris Langer, a Quantinuum fellow and key inventor of the company’s hardware, sees Google’s move as part of a broader diversification across the industry, as companies embrace different approaches to quantum computing. “They’re hedging their bets,” he says. Microsoft, in addition to developing its own quantum hardware, allows users of its Azure Quantum platform access to Atom Computing’s neutral atom hardware. The pair also collaborated to deliver a full-stack, on-premise quantum system to QuNorth, a Nordic quantum initiative based in Copenhagen. In July, IBM—arguably the most advanced player in superconducting—announced its acquisition of HRL Laboratories, a private R&D institution that’s been developing semiconductor-based spin-qubit systems, which encode quantum information in the spin of electrons and can run at warmer temperatures than superconducting hardware. And Google itself has already dabbled in neutral atoms, investing in Boston-based QuEra, which spun out of Harvard and MIT. To create a viable quantum computer, companies must figure out how to simultaneously add qubits to their systems—enabling more complex computations—and prevent them from being overwhelmed by errors, aka achieve fault tolerance. On both fronts, neutral atom and trapped ion systems share key advantages over superconducting approaches. All quantum systems are prone to errors; the difference is what kind of noise dominates, how strong it is, and how long qubits stay coherent before noise overwhelms them. Unlike the manufactured circuits that function as qubits in superconducting systems, the nature-made atoms employed in neutral atom and trapped ion systems are inherently perfect, identical, and highly coherent. The main error with these systems is that atoms from time to time just disappear, which in the scheme of things is a relatively easy problem to monitor and adjust for. Atom-based systems also allow qubits to move, enabling the kind of long-range connectivity that’s critical for next-generation error correction, but not possible with current superconducting architectures. As a result, proponents believe that systems based on atoms may require far fewer physical qubits in order to run utility-scale applications, a huge advantage when it comes to scaling. “It’s widely accepted that neutral atom quantum computers will deliver a fault-tolerant system by 2029,” says one industry adviser and investor. “It might not end up being the technology that dominates forever. But if I wanted to get there first, I think it’s neck and neck between neutral atoms and trapped ions.” Of the 11 companies selected for Stage B of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative https://www.fastcompany.com/91436587/quantum-computing-jolted-by-darpa-decision-on-most-viable-companies , which assesses the commercial feasibility of existing platforms, three use neutral atoms, and one uses trapped ions. Neutral atom systems are also increasingly popular in China, a country considered to be at the forefront of quantum technology. Though superconducting and photonics-based systems have traditionally dominated the R&D landscape there, four neutral atom quantum computing companies have been founded since 2025 in Shanghai alone. According to a recent article in the ChinaTalk newsletter, there are now at least 28 quantum computing hardware startups in China; nine apiece are focused on superconducting and neutral atoms, and four are pursuing trapped ion technology. Google isn’t backing away from its investment in superconducting quantum technologies. in his March blog post, Neven, Google’s Quantum AI head, emphasized that the company’s interest in neutral atoms is additive. “We are now increasingly confident that commercially relevant quantum computers based on superconducting technology will become available by the end of this decade,” he wrote. But by exploiting the “complementary strengths” of neutral atom systems, the company hopes to “accelerate our timeline to near-term milestones and broaden our impact.” Neven’s post explains that superconducting qubits have the benefit of speed—running complex quantum circuits in microseconds or millionths of a second . Neutral atoms, meanwhile, have cycle times measured in milliseconds or thousandths of second . But as neutral-atom systems scale to encompass much larger numbers of qubits, their all-to-all connectivity will allow them to run massively parallel operations and arrive at actual solutions faster. It’s like comparing a few cars moving fast on a two-lane highway versus many cars moving at a moderate speed on a 100-lane highway. Neven outlined three priorities for the Boulder group: quantum error correction, modeling and simulating quantum hardware architectures, and developing experimental hardware “to manipulate atomic qubits at application scale with fault-tolerant performance.” Outside of the announcement, Google has said very little about the size and scope of its program in Boulder. The company declined to provide any specific on-record updates for this article. That’s left competitors and other industry insiders plenty of room for speculation. First, there’s the actual size of Google’s neutral atom team. “Based on how many people Kaufman is talking to and how many companies I’m involved with that are terrified that Google will take up all their top people, this doesn’t feel like a 10-person effort,” says the investor and adviser. They add that although Kaufman was first brought in to vet existing neutral atom technologies, it now seems he and Google are creating a full neutral atom program, achieved by “offering all these people who are at existing neutral atom companies gobs of money to come join them.” Industry insiders also wonder what atomic “species” Google’s program will use—a critical strategic decision that shapes the development roadmap. The leading neutral atom and trapped ion companies are experimenting with different elements. QuEra and the French company Pasqal use rubidium; Infleqtion uses rubidium and cesium; Atom Computing switched from strontium to ytterbium in its current system. Quantinuum started with ytterbium and moved to barium. While these rare earth and alkali metals share some similarities, each has specific qualities that make it more amenable to certain kinds of systems. Kaufman may have hinted at Google’s future direction in an article that he cowrote with researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria, published in the June 2026 issue of Nature Physics. In it, they describe a novel “quantum multitool” for manipulating an isotope of ytterbium across diverse quantum applications. Then again, Kaufman has also done extensive work with the element strontium. Whatever the approach, Kaufman is arguably in the best place to find the talent he needs. When Kaufman’s hire was announced, Massimo Ruzzene, the vice chancellor of research and innovation at the University of Colorado, Boulder, called it an important recognition of the ecosystem “as a place where the workforce exists and knowledge exists.” The question is: What will Google’s program do to everyone else? “Boulder is a mecca for atomic physics research and development, and there’s a nice large talent pipeline flowing out of the institutions here into quantum tech,” says Langer at Quantinuum. “We actually see the talent pipeline growing thanks to university efforts to graduate more students.” He adds that he and others in the region aren’t limited to the local talent pool. “Young career individuals are willing to relocate, and at the end of the day, talent wants to go where the leading companies are.” Today, in the world of atom-based quantum computing, that location is Boulder. And whatever comes of Google’s efforts here, its presence only strengthens the area’s appeal.