Nokia scientist tackling the quantum phenomena faces the field’s toughest question

Why does a quantum computer need a fridge? What are we going to use those computers for? And when can we expect a breakthrough?

I have so many questions about everything quantum, but I don’t really feel like I’m getting much closer to definitive answers despite countless hours of research.

After all, there are around a dozen different kinds of qubits — the basic unit of information in a quantum computing system. Moreover, every company working with quantum innovations seems to still be missing some crucial piece of the puzzle.

But that’s also what makes it so exciting – technological breakthroughs lead to new scientific discoveries.

Nokia Bell Labs, for example, is working on a topological qubit that is supposed to be more stable and somewhat immune to environmental conditions such as temperatures and magnetic fields. The quantum computing group, led by Robert Willett, expects to demonstrate this qubit in 2026.

“This topological qubit will have extremely low error rates, which means we would not need to build massive redundancy into quantum computers,” Willett said.

I summoned Michael Eggleston, Nokia Bell Labs’ data and devices group leader, for more answers about quantum computing.

“It's really cool to be in that, but it's also crazy how fast-paced it is,” Eggleston told me.

The interview was conducted via a video chat and has been edited for length and clarity.

With quantum physics, we’re talking about exceptionally small particles, so what does your lab environment look like?

As you work with smaller and smaller things, the equipment you need gets bigger and bigger. Our quantum lab actually consists of over a dozen different labs throughout our facility.

We have everything from nanofabrication — where we get raw materials in and work in a cleanroom environment, patterning devices while wearing clean suits — to the testing side, where we put things in giant fridges that take up a whole room.

There are a lot of pumps and cryogens, like liquid helium and nitrogen, powering them. So, it’s a wide array of environments, from very clean to very industrial, all filled with scientific equipment.

A huge fridge is something that comes to mind when thinking about a quantum computer. But as far as I understand, with the topological qubits, this is a game changer because the qubits aren't that affected by the environment, like temperature and magnetic fields. Could you talk a little bit more about the topological qubits?

We still have to work inside a dilution refrigerator, so we’re operating at 20 to 50 millikelvin and need a large magnetic field. You have to create the right environment to make these states, but once you do, they’re very robust. That’s the unique property we’re trying to utilize. Typical qubits, like the superconducting ones IBM and Google make, also need special conditions, but they can lose their information in less than a millisecond. With our states, once initialized, they can retain information for hours or even days in some cases.

So no matter how stable the qubit is, the computer will still be big, needing cool temperatures and all the machinery, right?

Yes, you’ll still need that machinery to work in a cold environment. One advantage of our approach is that our individual qubits are really small — on the micron scale — so you could fit millions in a tiny area. Most other quantum computing architectures have much larger qubits. For example, with superconducting qubits, you can fit maybe 1,000 on a chip, but to do something useful, you need a million. That means a lot of chips, each needing a fridge at very cold temperatures. That’s why those systems get really big quickly.

What are the main issues you need to solve before you have a viable topological qubit?

We’ve been working on topological systems for a long time. It’s very tricky to get the system into the exact right state where it stabilizes. We’ve done that — we have a 2023 paper showing we can create this stable state.

We can initialize and measure it, and it’s very robust. The next big step is being able to manipulate it in different ways. In classical computing, you have gates—NOT, AND, OR—that let you do computation.

That’s what we’re moving toward: not just having a 0 or 1, but being able to control and switch between states, create superpositions, and start gating them. The milestone we’re working on now is being able to controllably go from zero to one and back, on demand. No topological system has ever been controllably flipped on and off like this.

Are many scientific breakthroughs happening in the field? Are you learning a lot about physics itself as you develop this technology?

It's really weird because we're basically seeing this technology development, engineering work going side by side with scientific discovery and exploration. It's really cool to be in that, but it's also crazy how fast-paced it is.

The basic physics was written down 80 years ago, and people have just kind of been refining it. In our system, there are still open questions. People don't really know what's going on.

It's exciting. It's definitely pushing the boundaries of science. You have to develop these really specialized tools that allow you to manipulate the smallest pieces of matter.

And you develop better tools that give you access to more information and understanding of the universe. That's kind of why the science is also leapfrogging with the technology.

On-device computing with quantum makes sense to me, since computing can be done in one controlled environment. But you also mentioned things like sensing and communication, which involve information traveling. Could you talk about quantum communication and what you’re doing in that field?

As a company, we’re biased toward communication, but quantum can bring a lot to how we design and control communication networks. One of the strangest things is that scientists, engineers, and companies treat light as a wave, which it is, but the whole point of quantum mechanics 100 years ago was the realization that it’s also a particle. Yet nobody really ever treats light as a particle in the telecommunications industry.

And it turns out that if you do that, it opens up a whole new realm of possibilities: you can communicate more data in the same channel, you can communicate more data with less energy, and you can also start sending more complex information. You can actually send quantum information instead of just classical information.

This is a whole new field and application space. The endpoints might still require cryogenic cooling and low temperatures, but photons are high energy, so you can send them long distances without much interaction. That’s how you can transmit information over long distances.

So, the infrastructure isn’t as complicated as the endpoints, right?

Yes, it’s the endpoints. Even generating photons can usually be done at room temperature and doesn’t require much infrastructure. Typically, it’s the detectors that need to be near absolute zero to perform well. So, there’s definitely an infrastructure change and new equipment needed, but there’s a lot more you can do that isn’t just brute-force engineering, unlike a lot of quantum computing.

What do you think the first applications of quantum phenomena will be?

If you can do it with artificial intelligence (AI) or a supercomputer, you should use those. I don’t think we’re anywhere near the point where a quantum computer will outperform a supercomputer at something the latter can do.

Maybe 50 years from now we'll be there, but I think really what's exciting about quantum computers can tackle problems we currently can’t even attempt — fundamental chemistry and physics problems that underpin materials creation, drug discovery, and industrial processes. Many of these are impossible to simulate now. Those are the applications that I'm most excited about.

When do you think you’ll start solving or attempting those problems? Are we talking decades?

That’s the question I get most and is hardest to answer. Most of the industry is targeting the early to mid-2030s for what people are calling a “useful” quantum computer — one that can solve a problem no other computer type can. Many companies are aiming for a similar timeframe. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. At first, only a few problems will be solved, and most people won’t notice, but for scientists, engineers, and clinicians working on new materials and processes, it will be transformational.

Why do companies like Nokia invest so much in quantum, given it’s a long-term goal with no immediate profit?

Most of our technology is based on a few fundamental discoveries, many from Bell Labs in the 1940s and 50s, which created the information age — like the transistor and solar cell. What’s being created now with quantum is fundamentally changing how we build hardware.

It’s like asking Intel in the 1960s what market they were trying to get into — everything in the future will be linked to this. We want to get in early to understand how it works, educate our workforce, and avoid falling behind. It has a lot of promise and applications, so it’s something you want to pay attention to.

What are the common misconceptions about quantum? Is there anything that particularly annoys you?

Nothing annoys me too much, but some things are miscommunicated. Some people think everything will be replaced by quantum — like having a quantum cell phone running on quantum chips. I don’t see that happening. Quantum opens up new areas we’ve never explored, but it won’t replace existing technologies. It’s an add-on that lets us do more, not a replacement.

That’s a common misconception — we still need supercomputers. You're just gonna be able to do even more with the quantum computer.