Based on UC Santa Barbara professor John Martinis’s Nobel Prize–winning work in physics, Santa Barbara–based startup Qolab Inc. is developing new quantum technologies, making them more scalable and increasing the capabilities of quantum computing while reducing the cost. On July 2, Qolab announced that it raised $54.2 million in Series B financing and commitments led by UC Investments to support this work. The company was co-founded by Martinis, who won a Nobel Prize in 2025 for paving the way in superconducting quantum computing. He won the award alongside UCSB professor Michel H. Devoret. Admittedly, quantum computing is hard to dumb down. It is a type of computing based on quantum mechanics, which exploits quantum phenomena (things that happen on a quantum scale), to perform certain calculations significantly faster than normal computers. A regular computer solves problems using bits that are either zeros and ones. But quantum computing uses qubits, which can almost be a zero and a one at the same time — increasing efficiency. If a regular bit is like a coin on a table, meaning it can either be heads or tails, a qubit is more like a coin spinning in the air, almost allowing both probabilities to exist at the same time (not exactly, but this is a close-enough picture). It can be used for designing new medicines and materials, or breaking encryptions. This is what QoLab is doing. Martinis, Qolab’s chief technology officer, started the work that led to his Nobel Prize back in 1985. As previously reported by the Independent’s Ella Heydenfeldt, after joining UCSB in 2004, Martinis led the university’s Google Quantum AI partnership, where his lab built a 53-qubit processor that achieved “quantum supremacy” — solving a problem no conventional computer could handle. Qolab is advancing the same technology. “Quantum computing is entering