Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Nobel Prize 2025 winner Michel Devoret.
Credit: Reuters, Google
It was a morning of celebration at Google as Michel H. Devoret, Chief Scientist of Quantum Hardware at the company’s Quantum AI division, was announced as one of the winners of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Devoret shares the honor with John Martinis, former head of Google’s quantum hardware team, and John Clarke of the University of California, Berkeley, for their groundbreaking work on macroscopic quantum effects, discoveries that laid the foundation for modern quantum computing.
The news sparked jubilation across Google’s campuses, especially at the Quantum lab in Santa Barbara, where Devoret currently leads research efforts. Employees reportedly gathered for an impromptu celebration, marking yet another proud milestone for the company’s growing list of Nobel laureates.
Notably, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was among the first to publicly congratulate the physicists. Taking to X, he wrote: “Congrats to Michel Devoret, John Martinis, and John Clarke on the Nobel Prize in Physics! Michel is the Chief Scientist of hardware at our Quantum AI lab, and John Martinis led the hardware team for many years.”
Pichai praised the trio’s decades-long contributions, highlighting how their early experiments on quantum behaviour at microscopic scales have shaped the breakthroughs happening at Google today.
“Their pioneering work in quantum mechanics in the 1980s made recent breakthroughs possible and paved the way for error-corrected quantum computers to come,” he said.
On LinkedIn, Pichai shared a more personal note, reflecting on how such moments have become a tradition at the tech giant. “Always fun to wake up to the news that someone you work with received a Nobel Prize. Those October mornings are becoming much more frequent for us at Google!” he wrote.
He added that he had visited the Quantum AI lab in Santa Barbara just a day earlier and witnessed the “incredible progress” being made. “Their work on macroscopic quantum effects is why we have a path to error-corrected quantum computers today,” he said.
The CEO also lighthearted remark referencing Google DeepMind’s Nobel-winning scientists, “Congrats, Michel! Hope Demis Hassabis and John Jumper are teaching you the secret handshake.”
Across social media, Google employees and Science enthusiasts alike celebrated the recognition. One user commented, “Five Nobel laureates at Google- that’s phenomenal!”
Another wrote, “This is what happens when a company invests in fundamental research. Congratulations, Michel Devoret and the Quantum AI team.”
With this win, Google now counts five Nobel laureates among its ranks- three prizes in just two years- a feat that underscores the company’s deepening influence at the intersection of technology and fundamental science.