Originally published on LinkedIn
Dec 30, 2025 | Charles Tahan
This is an archived copy of a LinkedIn article. The original is at the link above.
As 2025 wraps up, I wanted to take a moment to look back at what we’ve been building in quantum – both personally and as part of the Microsoft Quantum team.
It’s been a seminal year for quantum, a year of moving from vision to execution: standing up new labs and partnerships, working alongside and recruiting amazing co-workers, advancing the hardware and error-correction roadmap, and publishing work that connects deep physics to practical architectures and tools.
- January – Framing 2025 as the year to get quantum-ready. Microsoft set the tone early with a public call to treat 2025 as “the year to become quantum-ready,” outlining how we see the path from today’s systems to scaled fault-tolerant machines: 2025: The year to become quantum-ready
- February – DARPA and utility-scale benchmarking. DARPA announced that Microsoft would be evaluated as one of the “Phase C” approaches targeting utility-scale quantum computers within the Quantum Benchmarking / US2QC ecosystem. This is an important external validation step for our architecture and roadmap: DARPA news: Quantum computing approaches
- February – Majorana 1 and topological qubits. We publicly introduced Majorana 1, the first model of a quantum processor powered by topological qubits on the Microsoft roadmap. The associated and qubit progress this year marked a key milestone in turning years of materials and device research into a system-level platform: Microsoft unveils Majorana 1 (most relevant: Roadmap to fault tolerant quantum computation using topological qubit arrays and Distinct Lifetimes for X and Z Loop Measurements in a Majorana Tetron Device )
- March – “Future Charlie” speaks at the APS Global Physics Summit from the year 2040 about The simplest quantum computer and how this whole “quantum computing thing” turned out. On the research side, colleagues posted some interesting work exploring today’s quantum computers to simulate aspects of measurement-based quantum computing and Majorana particles: Measurement-based Simulation of Geometric Gates in Topological Qubits on NISQ Devices / Simulated Non-Abelian Statistics of Majorana Zero Modes from a Kitaev Lattice
- April – Sharing quantum intuition for World Quantum Day. In my LinkedIn post on our contribution for World Quantum Day (copy on this site) and the Year of Quantum we presented our Quantum and Arts project: Quantum Intuition XR: Tangible Quantum Mechanics using Interactive XR Experience
- May – Testifying to Congress on U.S. quantum leadership. I had the opportunity to testify before the U.S. House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology on how the National Quantum Initiative is shaping U.S. quantum technology leadership – now from the perspective of leading technical teams at Microsoft. Hearing: From Policy to Progress hearing page and my reflections: Written Testimony and Oral Testimony (LinkedIn article)
- June – Advances in spin qubits and error correction. On the physics and device side, we published work on Andreev spin qubits in germanium-based junctions, probing an important direction for semiconductor-based quantum devices: Resolving Andreev spin qubits in germanium-based Josephson junctions At the same time, the Microsoft Quantum team shared progress on a family of four-dimensional error-correction codes that are broadly applicable across qubit modalities – a crucial ingredient for scalable fault tolerance: Microsoft advances quantum error correction with four-dimensional codes
- July – Magne and the Nordic quantum investment. Denmark’s EIFO and the Novo Nordisk Foundation announced the acquisition of the Magne system – a powerful neutral-atom quantum computer built by Atom Computing and integrated with Microsoft quantum error correction and system software. It is an important example of pairing advanced hardware with cloud-scale infrastructure to serve a regional research and innovation agenda: EIFO and Novo Nordisk Foundation acquire the Magne quantum computer
- September – Quantum World Congress and a new Maryland quantum hub. Quantum World Congress 2025 in the DC region was a natural moment to talk about why partnership is essential to growing the quantum ecosystem – and to highlight what we’re building in the Washington–Maryland–Virginia corridor. We announced a new Microsoft quantum partner integration center in the University of Maryland’s Discovery District, deepening our collaboration with UMD and the State of Maryland and creating a new hub for scalable quantum computing R&D: Our new collaboration with Maryland will accelerate scalable quantum computing (copy on this site) / Microsoft at Quantum World Congress 2025 Microsoft: Why partnership is key to growing the quantum ecosystem
- November – Microsoft Quantum Pioneers Program and Building the modern quantum architecture. Chetan Nayak announced a new academic research program sponsored by Microsoft quantum and Matthias Troyer launched a public series on “Building the Modern Quantum Architecture (series) ,” capturing how we think about the full stack – from physics and devices up through cloud integration.
- December – Disorder, flopping-mode qubits, and Vibemas. We closed the year by publishing new work on how alloy disorder impacts strongly driven flopping-mode qubits in Si/SiGe – another piece in understanding the practical limits and opportunities for semiconductor-based qubit platforms: The effects of alloy disorder on strongly-driven flopping mode qubits in Si/SiGe and some explorations of the current state of AI tools in The Night Before Vibemas.
My personal focus this year has been on contributing to technology development, specifically on the scaling layers of Microsoft’s quantum computer stack. Then, doing what I can to contribute to policy and workforce, and to the architecture and partnerships that will help our platform and platform partners move faster. I’m grateful to everyone on the Microsoft Quantum team, our partners, and the broader community who made this year’s progress possible.
On to 2026 – with even more emphasis on turning these building blocks into useful, reliable quantum capabilities for science, industry, and society, and the dramatic acceleration of science due to new AI tools.