Nvidia to Open Quantum Computing Research Center in Boston This Year in a Landmark for Region’s Tech Sector

Technology giant Nvidia announced last Thursday that it will open a quantum computing research center in Boston by the end of 2025, where it will host research in partnership with labs at Harvard, MIT, and tech firms in the area.

The center marks a major milestone in the emerging quantum computing scene in Boston, which has so far been dominated by well-funded start-ups like QuEra and Quantum Machines, in addition to computing giant Quantinuum.

Now, Boston has attracted one of the world’s most valuable technology firms, cementing its much-touted status as a hub for technological innovation.

Nvidia, known for their graphics processing units and chips critical to powering modern computers and artificial intelligence technology, will use the center in their efforts to integrate AI supercomputing with newer quantum hardware.

The Nvidia Accelerated Quantum Research Center will work with Harvard’s Quantum Initiative and MIT’s Engineering Quantum Systems group, which the company said were Boston’s biggest draws.

“The most important thing is the great research community,” Sam Stanwyck, Nvidia senior product manager, said in an interview.

Where exactly the center will be remains unclear. Nvidia declined to disclose the exact location of the center, although Stanwyck confirmed that it has been selected.

“We have a location,” Stanwyck said. “We can’t be specific other than the Greater Boston area.”

Quantum computing is a novel, more sophisticated way of processing information, in which bits — the fundamental units of information in a computer — can store and process vastly more data by relying on quantum mechanics. To do so, however, also requires the development of special quantum algorithms that are still in their earliest stages.

Nvidia’s center will help advance those algorithms by training quantum computing models and large-scale simulations. That means the company won’t be developing physical quantum computers themselves, but the algorithms necessary to operate their hardware.

“Working on quantum computing is really in our DNA,” Stanwyck said, referencing the company’s reputation for creating new computing technology, which has helped produce modern innovations like AI for self-driving cars.

“We don’t build our own self-driving car, but we work with every company that does to help them,” he added.

Mikhail Lukin, a co-director of the HQI, said Nvidia’s center offers a promising opportunity to further those quantum algorithms and architectures using the company’s classical computing capabilities.

“We need powerful classical computers both to benchmark what quantum computers can do, and, also, often, the best quantum computers work alongside the best classical computers,” Lukin said.

The announcement of the research center comes after Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang previously struck a more pessimistic note on the progress of quantum innovation. In early January, Huang said that practical quantum computing applications are at least two decades away.

Following Huang’s remarks, both Nvidia’s stock prices and other related quantum computing stocks fell.

Matt Langione, a managing director at the Boston Consulting Group and leader of the company’s quantum computing program, said that Nvidia’s announcement was not inconsistent with Huang’s earlier remarks, emphasizing that progress often accelerates suddenly.

“When you think about a deep technology like quantum computing, you often think about a kind of an S-curve, effectively, in terms of value creation,” he said.

While direct applications of quantum computing may still be more distant, Langione said the computing center in Boston suggests that the “initial inflection” where businesses can first make practical use of this technology is closer than many expect.

Quantum computing might also one day serve Cambridge’s vibrant biotechnology sector, particularly in the field of drug discovery, due to its superior capability to analyze complex data.

“If one company had a quantum computer with a sufficient lead time over the rest of the field, they could effectively simulate and patent basically all available drug candidates,” Langione added.

As investment and research continues to advance this technology, experts say that due to the exponential nature of progress in an area like quantum computing, novel practical applications may come sooner than expected.

“With quantum computers, we really can go to corners of the universe where no one has ever been,” Lukin said.

—Staff writer Stephanie Dragoi can be reached at stephanie.dragoi@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Thamini Vijeyasingam can be reached at thamini.vijeyasingam@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @vijeyasingam