Sunday Reads: The Quantum World Moves Fast — Here’s What Happened
- QUCAN
- Oct 19
- 7 min read
🧭 Introduction
The quantum world moves fast — and keeping up isn’t always easy.
At QUCAN’s Q-Notebook, we don’t just report the latest breakthroughs — we tell their stories. We explore how science, technology, and curiosity come together to shape the quantum era.
In our Sunday Reads series, we spotlight the most remarkable developments in quantum research and industry from the past weeks — blending technical insight with clear, engaging storytelling.
This week, we revisit six milestones: from the Nobel Prize in Physics and quantum-powered trading at HSBC, to Harvard’s continuously operating quantum computer, the White House’s R&D priorities, a research on generative quantum advantage, and the launch of London’s first quantum applications hub.
🏅 The Nobel Prize in Physics 2025 — Bringing Quantum Tunneling to Life
The 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for experiments that transformed one of quantum physics’ strangest concepts quantum tunneling into something visible and measurable.
For nearly a century, scientists have asked a deceptively simple question: how big can something be and still behave quantum mechanically? Quantum phenomena are typically confined to the microscopic world of single atoms or particles — but this year’s laureates showed that the rules of quantum mechanics can govern systems large enough to hold in your hand.
Their work, dating back to experiments in 1984 and 1985, involved building an electronic circuit made of superconductors — materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance. The superconducting elements were separated by a thin insulating layer, forming what’s known as a Josephson junction. By carefully controlling the properties of this circuit, the team was able to make a collective system of electrons behave as if it were a single quantum particle filling the entire circuit.
In its resting state, current flowed through the circuit with no voltage — as if the system were “trapped” behind an invisible energy barrier. Then came the remarkable observation: the circuit escaped this zero-voltage state not by overheating or failing, but by tunneling through the barrier, just as an electron might. This was quantum tunneling at a macroscopic scale — something previously thought impossible.
Using ultrafast electron microscopy and attosecond spectroscopy, the laureates later achieved direct visualization of this process, capturing tunneling in real time — effectively watching a quantum leap unfold within a device large enough to be seen.
Achieving this required timing precision down to attoseconds (a billionth of a billionth of a second), pushing experimental physics to its limit. But beyond the technical triumph, the result carries deep meaning: it shows that quantum mechanics isn’t just the science of the invisible, but a framework that can shape real, tangible technology.
For decades, tunneling was something physicists could calculate but not witness. Now, thanks to this work, it’s something we can see — and perhaps soon, engineer.
It’s a discovery that doesn’t just explain the quantum world — it brings it to life.
You can read the official Nobel press release here.
📈 HSBC Demonstrates World’s First-Known Quantum-Enabled Algorithmic Trading with IBM
In a move that blurs the line between research and real-world finance, HSBC and IBM have demonstrated the world’s first known quantum-enabled algorithmic trading experiment — showing that quantum computing is no longer confined to the lab, but beginning to touch the financial systems that move the global economy. Algorithmic trading — the automation behind modern markets — relies on vast amounts of data and complex probability models. Even the smallest edge in prediction can translate into millions gained or lost. For years, researchers have speculated that quantum algorithms might someday outperform classical systems in these ultra-complex optimization problems. HSBC and IBM decided to test that idea. Using real data from the European corporate bond market, the team built a hybrid workflow that combined IBM’s quantum processors with HSBC’s classical trading algorithms. The goal was to estimate the probability that a quoted bond price would actually be filled — a notoriously difficult problem in over-the-counter markets.
By introducing quantum-enhanced optimization, the system achieved up to 34% improvement in predictive accuracy compared to classical methods alone. The quantum part wasn’t replacing the existing trading system — it was enhancing it, like adding a new dimension of computation where probabilities and correlations could be explored simultaneously. Financial markets are messy, nonlinear, and full of uncertainty — exactly the kind of landscape where quantum mechanics might shine. This proof-of-concept marks a turning point: quantum computing isn’t just solving toy problems anymore. It’s starting to optimize real financial decisions with real data.
For HSBC, it signals a strategic bet on the future of computation in finance. For IBM, it’s a glimpse of how quantum can integrate with high-performance computing to solve problems that classical systems alone can’t.
As Philip Intallura, HSBC’s Head of Quantum Technologies, put it: “This is a new frontier for computing in financial services.”
The experiment may not yet be trading billions — but it shows that the quantum advantage everyone talks about is quietly, steadily, finding its way into the markets.
You can find the full announcement on HSBC’s official site.
⚛️ Harvard Researchers Develop First Ever Continuously Operating Quantum Computer
One of the biggest hurdles in quantum computing has always been fragility.
Quantum processors can perform extraordinary calculations — but only for a blink of an eye before noise, heat, or atomic drift collapse their quantum state. For decades, researchers have dreamed of a machine that could stay stable, continuously, without needing constant resets.
This year, a team at Harvard University turned that dream into something real: a quantum computer that can operate continuously, keeping its delicate qubits coherent for hours instead of seconds. The Harvard group’s approach focused on neutral atom qubits, which are tiny clouds of rubidium atoms trapped by laser light. In most setups, some of these atoms inevitably “leak out” or lose their quantum state, forcing experiments to stop.
The team solved this with a beautifully simple but powerful idea: instead of treating the quantum system as static, they kept it alive. By using optical tweezers and a laser conveyor system, they could replace lost atoms on the fly — refreshing the quantum register in real time.
As a result, their system sustained over two hours of uninterrupted quantum operation, a world record by several orders of magnitude. It’s not yet a general-purpose computer, but it’s a proof that a quantum processor doesn’t have to be a fragile, short-lived thing — it can run like a living system.
For readers who want to explore the details, Harvard’s full research summary is available here.
🏛️ White House Places Quantum & AI at the Summit of R&D Priorities
Each year, the White House releases a memo that quietly decides where billions in federal research funding will flow. The latest one — for Fiscal Year 2027 — makes something crystal clear: quantum technologies and artificial intelligence now sit at the heart of America’s innovation strategy.
For the first time, these two fields are treated not as distant frontiers but as critical infrastructure — technologies the U.S. intends to build its economic and security future upon. Agencies are urged to move beyond theory and focus on what’s deployable: quantum testbeds, scalable devices, advanced chips, and real-world applications.
By tying quantum and AI together, the administration signals that progress in one will accelerate the other. It’s a coordinated bet on the technologies that will shape the next decade — and a reminder that the quantum race has officially entered the policy stage.
The full FY 2027 R&D Priorities memo can be read here.
🧠 Generative Quantum Advantage — When Quantum Systems Learn to Create
For years, the term quantum advantage has meant one thing: proving that a quantum device can outperform classical computers on a specific task. But most of those tasks — like random circuit sampling — were largely theoretical and not particularly useful outside the lab. This new paper, “Generative Quantum Advantage for Classical and Quantum Problems” (arXiv:2509.09033), takes the idea in a very different direction. It argues that the next true quantum advantage will come from learning and generating, not just calculating. Researchers led by Hsin-Yuan (Robert) Huang introduce a framework where quantum systems can be trained like generative AI models — capable of learning distributions and producing complex, structured outputs that classical systems can’t efficiently replicate.
Their experiments combine shallow quantum circuits with a method called the “sewing technique,” allowing multiple small quantum blocks to be trained independently and then stitched together. This modular design helps smooth out the notoriously rugged quantum loss landscape, making training more stable.
On real hardware — a 68-qubit superconducting processor — they demonstrated scalable behavior equivalent to over 800 effective qubits, with theoretical scaling projected to tens of thousands. That’s not a simulation; that’s a tangible experimental leap. This work reframes what “quantum advantage” actually means. Instead of showing that quantum computers can do something useless but difficult, it shows they can learn and create — producing data distributions that no classical machine can efficiently mimic.
It’s a step toward quantum generative AI: systems that don’t just process information, but invent it. If the 20th century was about teaching computers to calculate, this century might be about teaching them to imagine — one qubit at a time.
Read the full paper on arXiv:2509.09033.
🏙️ QBase — London’s Launchpad for Quantum Applications
London is already a global tech hub. But in the quantum-age, the question isn’t just “can we build quantum devices?” — it’s “how can we make them useful, here and now?” EdenBase, a venture ecosystem builder, recognised that gap. Partnering with Northeastern University London, they created QBase to act as a bridge between research labs, start-ups and real-world deployments. QBase is positioned as a “quantum applications hub”: a place where founders, enterprises and investors converge. Here’s how it works:
Start-ups get access to capital, mentorship, compute & infrastructure support — not just ideas, but deployment pathways.
Enterprises explore pilot projects: integrating quantum (and quantum+AI) into sectors like energy, sustainability, food security and human biology.
The location and ecosystem matter: being in London means proximity to global finance, industry networks and policy capabilities.
This opening signals that quantum technology is entering the “application phase”. The mix of investment + industry engagement + academic talent is exactly what gives emerging tech a chance to move from lab to market. For London, QBase adds a strategic arrow in its innovation quiver; for quantum start-ups, it creates a visible base-camp; for industries, an accessible place to begin quantum pilots rather than wait for ideal conditions.
In short: the quantum ecosystem just got a launchpad.
Quantum is moving faster than ever — from Nobel-winning experiments to real-world trading, from national policy to next-generation research. At Q-Notebook, we’ll keep connecting these dots so you don’t just follow the news — you understand the momentum behind it.
Stay curious, stay healthy — and keep going until the qubits collapse.
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