SBU widens its quantum lead with cutting-edge institute

By GREGORY ZELLER //

Stony Brook University is widening its lead as a global quantum-computing superhub, with an internationally renowned physics professor leading the charge.

Leveraging a $300 million State of New York stipend announced last fall, a $13 million investment by the university itself and future fundraising efforts, SBU has announced the formation of its new Quantum Institute, under the capable guiding hand of Eden Figueroa, an endowed presidential professor of physics in the university’s Department of Physics and Astronomy.

Billed as the state’s first university-based “hybrid quantum data center,” the 150,000-square-foot facility will carve the leading edge of quantum-science and quantum-technology research and education, with special attention paid to quantum communication and networking and the “development of a viable quantum Internet,” according to Figueroa.

“The Quantum Institute will boost Stony Brook’s leadership in the quantum sciences through additional faculty expertise, expanded research facilities … and incredible opportunities for students and postdoctoral scholars to advance the frontiers of knowledge using a quantum lens,” the presidential professor noted.

The institute will unite faculty and students from core disciplines across Stony Brook’s College of Arts and Sciences and College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, while fostering collaborations with the Renaissance School of Medicine and other university research cornerstones, including the Institute for Advanced Computational Science and the AI Innovation Institute.

It will also house the Stony Brook Quantum Education Consortium – ultimately creating “the first quantum-connected university in the United States,” Figueroa added.

The coalescing of the state and university funds and existing quantum resources and programs into the new Quantum Institute marks another highwater mark for SBU supercomputing. Among other leaps, the university was selected in 2024 by the National Science Foundation to lead multiple institutions in the development of a long-distance quantum network that demonstrates advantages in distributed quantum computing and quantum communications.

Stony Brook scientists also reach way back into the development of room-temperature quantum mechanics (a major plateau for a science that traditionally requires supercooled environments), the interrogation of “quantum witnesses,” the creation of “unhackable” communications networks and other quantum-flavored breakthroughs.

And now comes the first-of-its-kind Quantum Institute, which will empower interdisciplinary quantum research across networking, computing, sensing and simulation scenarios – and has the perfect captain at the helm, according to Stony Brook University Executive Vice President and Provost Carl Lejuez.

“[Figueroa] is a highly accomplished scientist, inventor (and) entrepreneur, a deeply valued colleague, and the kind of visionary who will lead Stony Brook and its partners in achieving our goal of becoming the epicenter of interdisciplinary quantum research,” Lejuez said in a statement. “The Quantum Institute will anchor a global consortium that will spin out high-tech startups, fuel industry-sponsored research and forge deep international partnerships.

“Under [Figueroa’s] leadership, it will ensure that Stony Brook expands its global leadership in the quantum revolution.”

With quantum computing indeed set to revolutionize computational sciences, these are lofty goals indeed – and Figueroa, who holds a joint appointment with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, is primed to bring them to fruition.

“I am humbled and honored to be [the Quantum Institute’s] first director,” Figueroa said. “I look forward to making Stony Brook the home of the U.S. Quantum Internet of Things and to starting new areas of quantum research with my esteemed Stony Brook colleagues.”