The U.S. National Science Foundation renewed its support for the UC Berkeley-led NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Quantum Computation, awarding the initiative $37.5 million. For the next five years, the funding will help the institute build quantum technologies, explore their applications and discover new ways quantum computing can be used to better understand nature. The initiative spans across California, encompassing research at UC Berkeley as well as at universities such as Caltech, UCLA and Stanford. “The idea behind a quantum computer is to build a computer that takes advantage of some of those weirder, strange aspects of quantum mechanics to do computations that are hard or impossible on the computers that we have today,” said UC Berkeley associate professor of physics Shimon Kolkowitz, who is conducting research on atomic clocks for the institute. Kolkowitz expressed his hopes for future applications of quantum computing, including its use in the discovery of new materials and drugs, as well as in the improvement of chemical reactions’ energy efficiency. Kolkowitz described the institute’s research as interdisciplinary, spanning many departments including chemistry, physics, electrical engineering, computer science and material science. “We feel like it’s really an honor and a privilege to be doing this work on behalf of the nation,” said Claire Cramer, executive director of NSF CIQC and Berkeley Quantum, campus’s hub for quantum research and application. Cramer described how NSF CIQC is trying to ensure that the United States is on the cutting edge of quantum development. Additionally, Cramer said the NSF’s financial support of CIQC’s quantum research indicates how promising the work has proven. “Our goal is pretty ambitious,” said campus physics professor and NSF CIQC director Dan Stamper-Kurn. “We want to open up an undergraduate degree program in quantum information science that would be available to all students across the