My first time on the Vergecast! Have a listen if you've ever wondered what's the deal with quantum computing, or if you've never wondered at all (which is most of my friends and family).

Following Trump's executive orders, Microsoft news, and announcements of $billions in investment, I wrote about the current state of quantum computing and what we can expect. bit.ly/4v3kedO

IBM figured out how to build two tiers of transistors on a chip. Experts I spoke to agreed this was "transformational." This paves a way to cramming more transistors on chips without needing to shrink them further. www.technologyreview.com/2026/06/25/1...

Quantum computing drama. Henry Legg's critique of Microsoft's quantum computing claims was published in Nature today. Legg doubts they made a working qubit last year, and he thinks this year's chip suffers the same problems. bit.ly/4eY1ffP

Climate science can be a heavy topic. But who's to say it's not beautiful, too? Physicists have found the patterns in Earth's oceans and atmospheres recur in other unexpected parts of our universe, including strange states of matter. There is poetry to our planet. physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

Someone finally got through to the physicists that the way to trick children into learning quantum mechanics is to give them a video game with cats www.aps.org/apsnews/2026...

NSF uses staffing cuts to strip Inspector General's office of its ability to investigate research misconduct www.science.org/content/arti...

"I think many people have forgotten about it," an international student told me. A physics PhD takes ~6 years; Trump is about to cap internat. students' time at 4 years. This will fundamentally change STEM education and research in the US. Academia, gird your loins. www.aps.org/apsnews/2026...

Astronomy, meet quantum computing. A recent demonstration at Harvard shows how entangled particles could help multiple optical telescopes, spaced far apart, combine their light to create better images. physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

Bluesky hive mind: I'm writing a story for the American Physical Society about proposed changes in US student visas. I'm looking for international physics students willing to share how it's affected their decisionmaking. They can be anonymous.

😶

Wrote a review for a movie from 6 decades ago. Rewatching 2001 in 2026 made me consider the purpose of accurate science in movies. They're never completely accurate, and sometimes bad science makes better movies. But in 2001, the accuracy creates room for wonder. www.aps.org/apsnews/2026...

I call this Schrödinger's chicken, where the chicken can come both before and after the egg. (Check out my story on indefinite causal order.) physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

Columbus, Ohio, where I live, is one of the fastest growing data center markets in the country. Capacity grew 18x, 2020-2025. Meta is building a gigawatt-scale facility in the area. It's confusing and chaotic, so the community met about it yesterday. I bore witness: matternews.org/community/de...

Here's yet another weird analogue between nature and technology. New theory finds that bursts of gamma rays can form in an insulator like they do during a lightning storm in the atmosphere (which is itself, a type of insulator too).

Let's talk about neutrinos and the sun. Cheers to @thephysicsgirl.bsky.social and team, great to be working together again. www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3m3...

Quantum computers are insanely hard to build, with commercial application timelines of a decade+. The space is overrun with hype. Academic physicists in Canada are making an open-source quantum computer in a bid for more transparency. physics.aps.org/articles/v19...

1/4 RIP Micius 🛰️ The world's first quantum satellite crashed into the Pacific last week (to the west of Ecuador) after an almost 10-year mission Also known as Mozi (& QUESS) it was famously the first to teleport a photon to space (or at least its quantum state) 🧪⚛️ www.nature.com/articles/nat...

Companies' push to use generative AI means more chips, more servers, and data centers — and in a few years, a lot of garbage. Here's my story about how countries plan to deal with the rising e-waste, and the challenges ahead. www.nature.com/articles/s43... (1/n)

Quantinuum's new trapped-ion quantum computer, Helios, has performed some intriguing simulations of high-temperature superconductors. But it's still much too small to perform the industry’s dream algorithms. www.technologyreview.com/2025/11/05/1...

(1/2) Today's Chemistry Nobel went to metal-organic frameworks. These are a class of customizable molecules that I think of as cages, where you can trap chemicals of your choice and then efficiently perform controlled chemistry reactions within them.

(1/n) Today's physics Nobel Prize went to John Clarke, Michel Devoret, and John Martinis for their work on quantum tunneling in superconducting circuits. This research laid the groundwork for the quantum computers in development today.

In my latest for Gizmodo, I write about two cases of generative AI being used in legal settings. They're foils to each other: one that I believe presents a way to use the software responsibly, and one that doesn't. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to decide which is which. (1/n)

Not a lot of people get to invent a programming language. I got to talk to somebody who did. Check out my latest profile in APS News. www.aps.org/apsnews/2025...

Quantum computing gets all the attention -- but have you heard about their cousin, quantum radar? I write about a new type of quantum radar that uses Rydberg atoms, used as qubits in computers, not for encoding info but for imaging objects underground. www.technologyreview.com/2025/08/11/1...

Meet Sergio Cantu, a physicist at QuEra who just built a quantum computer in Japan and who also teaches baller science workshops to students in Mexico. My story for APS News. www.aps.org/apsnews/2025...

IBM says it's got all the ingredients and plans to make an error-corrected, large-scale quantum computer by 2028. "Large scale" = 200 logical qubits, 100 million operations, which is likely still 10x fewer operations than needed to be useful. My story: www.technologyreview.com/2025/06/10/1...

This article basically a laundry list of how NOT to use AI. And that's how DOGE used it, to automate the cancelling of contracts at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Great reporting and some striking visualizations of the cuts to NSF coming from a variety of directions: terminated grants, frozen new grants, and budget cuts.

In spacetime news, the European Space Agency launched the most accurate clock to fly in space last month. It won't lose or gain a second in 300 million years. www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/22/1... (1/n)

Nothing gold can stay

This piece points out so much of gadgetry and medicine today (Internet, MRIs, Google search) exists because of years of U.S. government investment. Scientists are worried today, but everyone will feel these cuts in the future, when we wonder why people stopped innovating.

In 2030, AI will consume the same amount of energy as Japan does annually, a new projection from the IEA finds. In reality, it's likely that utilities can't build power plants fast enough to meet that demand. (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"For now, many data centers in China sit in limbo—built for a future that has yet to arrive." Fascinating reporting by @caiwei.bsky.social on the overhype arc of generative AI in China. www.technologyreview.com/2025/03/26/1...

"Supporting students of color does not require the illegal use of race. Saying 'Black Lives Matter' requires only the willingness to acknowledge Black people’s humanity." [email protected] on OSU flipflopping on systemic racism in less than five years www.dispatch.com/story/opinio...

Lots of quantum computing news this week/year. A little error correction here, cat qubit there -- and a whole lot of wtf is Microsoft claiming now. If you're wondering what it all means, here I try to sum up the state of things. www.theverge.com/tech/633248/...

A Chinese team has created a fridge-sized, 23kg satellite that can perform quantum key distribution in space & used it to transmit a secure image 13,000km. A quantum secure network that spans the globe is not far away ⚛️🧪 My @nature.com story here: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Interesting tale here on D-Wave claiming last year that their quantum computers could do things that no classical computer could do. This week that paper passed peer-review. Success, right? No. Two teams of classical computer scientists say they've caught up. www.newscientist.com/article/2471...

Quantum computing technology based on elusive quasiparticles called Majorana zero modes has long generated both dreams and controversies. A few weeks ago, a tech giant tried to swing the conversation in favor of dreams coming true - but experts remain unconvinced www.newscientist.com/article/2471...

Microsoft's extraordinary claim last month—to have created a bonafide topological qubit—was met with caution by many experts. Now, a physicist is raising specific and substantive concerns about a key test that underlies Microsoft's approach. My reporting: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Generative AI has a reputation for being an energy hog. For my latest feature in Nature, I dig into the actual numbers. (1/n) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Today, Amazon announced its quantum computer, Ocelot. QCs are still too small to be useful, but Amazon showed they can do error correction with only 9 qubits -- ~10 times less than Google. They argue they have a path to scale up their machines. (1/n) www.technologyreview.com/2025/02/27/1...

Canadian startup Xanadu showed off its new quantum computer, Aurora, in a paper in Nature last week. My story: www.technologyreview.com/2025/01/30/1...

This year, @catherineespaillat.bsky.social was part of the team who discovered the youngest planet to date -- a 3 million year old 430 light years away. I got to profile her for the Heising-Simons Foundation: 1400degrees.org/insight/cath... 1/n

ICYMI: I wrote a feature on the dilemma of trying to make gen AI "safe." My story on how researchers at Google in 2021 tried to make a more diverse training dataset but disproportionately censored innocuous LGBTQ+ content from it: www.nature.com/articles/s43... (1/n)

Quantum computers can't execute long algorithms with accuracy. I report on an advance from Google in this department, though Jay Gambetta of rival IBM cautions that it's just a first step. The dance continues: get a little excited, but not too much. www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/11/1...

In April, I visited Frontier, the world's fastest supercomputer, in Tennessee. It's 35 times faster than Tianhe-2A, which was #1 in 2014, and 33,000 times faster than Earth Simulator, #1 in 2004. Here's my story on what they're doing with it. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Some physics profs are embracing ChatGPT in teaching. “This tool is out there,” physicist Yasemin Kalender told me. “Instead of trying to police students, we can actually have an honest conversation.” I reported on their classroom experiments with generative AI: www.aps.org/apsnews/2024...

Everything is machine learning blah blah these days, including this story I wrote. But there's a new spin: this AI device is analog. No GPUs. It looks like a box of wires barfed on a table. It's still rudimentary, but it's really cool. www.technologyreview.com/2024/06/05/1...

Bore witness to a couples counseling session between physicists and their journal editors last week. Here's my writeup of how it went down: www.technologyreview.com/2024/05/15/1...