Princeton to lead new quantum institute backed by National Science Foundation

Princeton will lead one of three new Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes, U.S. National Science Foundation sponsored interdisciplinary centers focused on advancing quantum research, the NSF announced this August. The NSF award grants Princeton’s QLCI $27.9 million across the next five years to fund research on improving Josephson junctions, a key component of superconducting quantum processors.

The QLCI will be known as Manufacturable and Resilient Superconducting Quantum Information Systems, or MARQUIS, and will comprise cross-disciplinary, nationwide research directed by Princeton electrical and computer engineering professor Nathalie de Leon. Research for MARQUIS began on Sept. 1, according to the NSF grant details.

The three new institutes bring the total number of QLCIs to eight, all of which are led by universities. The two other new QLCIs are being led by Yale University and Harvard University. The eight institutes will collectively receive more than $290 million in federal funding through their five-year programs to conduct research in quantum science and technology.

Unlike traditional research centers, which often pertain to only one discipline, the QLCIs unite researchers across disciplines around a specific focus. MARQUIS focuses on Josephson junctions, which have received little research attention in the last decade, according to de Leon. The current state-of-the-art technology, she said, is believed to be the best it can be.

MARQUIS will bring together “expertise from materials, processing, devices, and measurement in semiconductor devices, photonics, and spintronics together with experts in superconducting qubits to tackle the critical challenges for enabling large-scale superconducting quantum processors,” the award description reads. 

De Leon, co-director of the Princeton Quantum Initiative, will be the inaugural director of MARQUIS. Princeton chemical and biological professor David Graves is one of de Leon’s co-principal investigators, alongside three other engineering and physics professors.

Graves declined to comment, referring The Daily Princetonian to de Leon. 

De Leon said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ that MARQUIS was intentionally structured to bring together researchers from different fields, including the technology sector, to tackle a longstanding scientific challenge that has resisted solutions for decades.

“There is a lot of curiosity about how academic and industry research should play together,” de Leon noted.

De Leon is also research faculty at Google Quantum AI, one of the companies represented on the advisory board for MARQUIS.

The award comes in the midst of cuts to federal funding of scientific research, including at Princeton. In its fiscal year 2026 budget request, the NSF said it planned to prioritize areas including quantum information science, artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and biotechnology while operating in a “constrained fiscal environment.” 

For the 2027 fiscal year, the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee allocated around $7 billion for NSF’s research and activities funding, marking a 20-percent decrease from the previous year.

University spokesperson Molly Seltzer declined to comment on the new initiative and its role in the broader context of federal scientific research funding at the University.

Researchers from many different institutions, including Princeton, Cornell University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California Santa Barbara, will collaborate on MARQUIS. This team of academic participants extends into industry through the center’s advisory board, which includes representatives from Google Quantum AI, NVIDIA, Applied Materials, Oxford Instruments, and more.

If the center succeeds in its goals, researchers hope to develop new material combinations and fabrication techniques that can eventually be transferred to industry through patents, licensing, and publications.

Riley Price is a News contributor for the ‘Prince’ and a member of the Class of 2030.

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