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Charles Black, named director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) in June 2025, is leading research on superconducting materials — including tantalum — to improve qubit performance and enable scalable quantum hardware. C2QA researchers have reported superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, described as the longest ever reported.
Charles (Chuck) Black, director of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, is leading a 28-institution research effort to overcome the materials and manufacturing barriers standing between today’s quantum computers and scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems. According to a report published by The Quantum Insider on September 30, 2026, C2QA researchers have built superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond — described as the longest ever reported — by using the superconductor tantalum in place of conventional materials.
C2QA is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Brookhaven National Laboratory and spanning 28 institutions from national laboratories, academia, and industry. Black was named director in June 2025 and also serves as deputy associate laboratory director for the Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate at Brookhaven. According to the press release on which the report is based, the center is pursuing breakthroughs in materials science and modular system architectures to enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
A central strand of C2QA’s work addresses the possibility that the superconducting materials used in qubits — traditionally aluminum and niobium — have limited performance. Researchers at Princeton University, part of the C2QA collaboration, began building qubits from tantalum, which has fewer of the oxidation states suspected of degrading qubit performance. Using characterization capabilities at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials and the National Synchrotron Light Source II, the researchers developed an understanding of how oxidation of tantalum’s surface affects qubit performance, work that culminated in the reported record-setting transmon lifetimes.
The press release states that improving qubit performance alone will not deliver scalable quantum computing, and identifies manufacturing quantum hardware at scale as another major challenge. C2QA is pursuing quantum devices built with silicon-compatible materials that align with existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, an approach informed by Black’s earlier work at IBM, where from 1996 to 2006 he pioneered polymer self-assembly techniques for high-performing semiconductor devices.
Why Materials Choices Shape Quantum Computing’s Future
The reported one-millisecond qubit lifetimes matter because qubit coherence time — how long a qubit retains its quantum state — directly constrains how many operations a quantum computer can perform before errors accumulate. Longer-lived qubits reduce the burden on quantum error correction, widely viewed as a requirement for fault-tolerant quantum computing capable of solving commercially and scientifically meaningful problems.
The tantalum result also illustrates a broader argument central to C2QA’s mission: that progress in quantum hardware may depend as much on materials science as on device physics. Black drew a direct parallel to the history of microelectronics, noting that early transistors used germanium rather than silicon, and that the eventual shift to silicon — because of its superior material properties — enabled the modern electronics industry. He suggested aluminum and niobium may prove to be the ‘germaniums’ of quantum computing.
The manufacturing dimension is equally consequential. If quantum devices can be built with silicon-compatible materials and processes, they could in principle be produced using the established semiconductor fabrication infrastructure, improving the prospects for the large-scale production that practical quantum computers would require.
Black’s Path from IBM to Brookhaven Leadership
Black’s career, as described in the press release, tracks the evolution of quantum computing itself. After doctoral research at Harvard University, where he studied superconducting materials, he spent a decade at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center (1996–2006) pioneering polymer self-assembly for semiconductor devices. He joined Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) in 2006 as one of its first group leaders and led CFN as director from 2016 to 2025.
C2QA launched in 2020 as one of DOE’s National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, bringing together physicists — including the Yale University inventors of the superconducting transmon qubit — and materials scientists. The center was formed partly in response to a plateau in transmon qubit performance after more than a decade of development using aluminum and niobium, prompting researchers to investigate whether the constituent superconducting materials themselves were the limiting factor.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
— Charles Black, director of C2QA
Claims Awaiting Independent Verification
The claim that C2QA’s tantalum transmons achieved the world’s best-performing superconducting qubit lifetimes and the longest ever reported comes from the press release itself; the report does not cite an independent peer-reviewed publication or benchmark where readers can verify the figure against competing results. The extent to which the one-millisecond lifetimes translate into improved system-level performance is also not quantified.
Whether silicon-compatible quantum devices can actually be manufactured at scale within existing semiconductor facilities remains an open research question, and the report provides no timeline for when C2QA’s materials advances might reach fault-tolerant systems. Whether tantalum will displace aluminum and niobium industry-wide — or encounter its own scaling limits — is unresolved.
C2QA’s Road Toward Fault-Tolerant Systems
According to the press release, C2QA will continue work on two fronts: improving qubit performance through superconducting materials research, and developing modular system architectures and manufacturing approaches compatible with semiconductor fabrication. The center’s 28-institution collaboration, including Princeton’s tantalum qubit effort and Brookhaven’s characterization facilities, is expected to continue driving both tracks.
Watch for possible peer-reviewed publications detailing the tantalum qubit results, comparisons with industry superconducting platforms such as those from IBM and Google, and further DOE announcements about the National Quantum Information Science Research Centers’ next phases.
Key Questions
What is C2QA?
The Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory. Launched in 2020, it spans 28 institutions from national labs, academia, and industry, and focuses on materials science and modular architectures for scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computing.
Who is Charles Black?
Charles (Chuck) Black is a materials scientist who became C2QA director in June 2025. He previously led Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (2016–2025), worked at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center (1996–2006), and holds a doctorate from Harvard University. He also serves as deputy associate laboratory director for Brookhaven’s Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate.
Why is tantalum being used for qubits?
According to the press release, C2QA researchers at Princeton University built qubits from tantalum because it has fewer oxidation states suspected of degrading qubit performance than the conventionally used aluminum and niobium. Work at Brookhaven facilities clarified how tantalum surface oxidation affects performance, contributing to reported transmon lifetimes exceeding one millisecond.
Has the one-millisecond qubit lifetime been independently verified?
The claim of lifetimes exceeding one millisecond — described as the longest ever reported for superconducting transmons — comes from the press release. The report does not point to a peer-reviewed publication or independent benchmark confirming the record, so readers should treat it as an institutional claim.
What is the remaining obstacle to scalable quantum computers?
The press release identifies manufacturing quantum hardware at scale as a major remaining challenge, alongside qubit performance. C2QA is pursuing devices built with silicon-compatible materials aligned with existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, which could enable future large-scale production.
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