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Charles (Chuck) Black, named director of Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) in June 2025, is applying his materials science and semiconductor background to the challenge of scalable quantum computing. C2QA researchers, spanning 28 institutions, have built tantalum-based superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond — the longest ever reported, according to the center.
Charles (Chuck) Black, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, is leading a 28-institution research effort to overcome the materials and manufacturing barriers that stand between today’s quantum computers and practical, scalable systems. According to a report published by The Quantum Insider on September 30, 2026, C2QA researchers — building on Black’s decades of nanoscale materials and semiconductor work — have produced tantalum-based superconducting transmon qubits with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, which the center describes as the longest ever reported.
Black was named C2QA director in June 2025. C2QA is a National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Brookhaven National Laboratory and funded by the DOE Office of Science. The center spans 28 institutions across national laboratories, academia, and industry, and focuses on materials science and modular system architectures intended to enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum systems.
A central strand of C2QA’s work addresses why superconducting qubit performance plateaued after more than a decade of development using aluminum and niobium transmons. Researchers at Princeton University, part of the C2QA collaboration, began building qubits with the superconductor tantalum, which has fewer of the oxidation states suspected of degrading qubit performance. Using materials characterization tools at Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) and the National Synchrotron Light Source II, the researchers gained an understanding of how oxidation of tantalum’s surface affects qubit performance. The team ultimately achieved the world’s best-performing superconducting transmon qubits, with lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, according to the center’s account.
Black’s path to the role draws on nearly two decades at CFN — including nine years as its director from 2016 to 2025 — and, before that, ten years as a research staff member at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center (1996–2006), where he and collaborators pioneered the use of polymer self-assembly to fabricate semiconductor devices. That manufacturing experience informs C2QA’s pursuit of quantum devices built with silicon-compatible materials that align with existing fabrication capabilities and could support future large-scale production, according to the report.
Why Materials Matter for Scalable Quantum Computers
Superconducting qubits are a leading platform for quantum computing, but two problems have limited progress: qubit performance (how long qubits retain quantum information) and manufacturability at scale. C2QA’s tantalum results suggest that swapping constituent materials — rather than only refining designs — can produce measurable gains in qubit lifetimes, a key metric for fault tolerance.
Black frames the strategy with an analogy from microelectronics history: “I like remembering that the first transistors in microelectronics were made from germanium semiconductors, not silicon,” he said. “It was the long-ago realization that silicon has better material properties that has enabled our modern electronics industry. Similarly, I wonder if it’s possible that aluminum and niobium are the ‘germaniums’ of quantum computing.” If that analogy holds, materials substitution could prove as consequential for quantum hardware as the shift to silicon was for classical chips. The center’s parallel push toward silicon-compatible quantum devices aims to let future quantum processors be produced using manufacturing infrastructure that already exists, addressing the scale-up challenge Black encountered firsthand at IBM.
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From Doctoral Superconductors to National Lab Leadership
Black’s career, as described in the report, spans the arc of quantum computing itself. As a doctoral student at Harvard University, he used superconducting materials to study fundamental physics questions and, he said, did not expect to work with them again. “I feel like I’ve come full circle,” Black said of returning to superconductors three decades later as C2QA director.
After IBM, Black joined Brookhaven’s CFN in 2006 as one of its first group leaders, developing nanoscale self-assembly approaches for energy applications, and led the facility from 2016 to 2025. He also serves as deputy associate laboratory director for the Energy and Photon Sciences Directorate at Brookhaven Lab. C2QA launched in 2020, bringing together physicists — including the Yale University inventors of the superconducting transmon qubit — with materials scientists to investigate whether constituent superconductor materials were limiting qubit performance. Black emphasizes collaboration as central to the center’s approach: “I’ve always loved being on teams,” he said.
“I feel like I’ve come full circle.”
— Charles Black, director of C2QA
Open Questions in the Tantalum Approach
Several points remain unresolved. Whether tantalum-based qubits can be manufactured at scale with consistent performance has not been demonstrated; the reported one-millisecond lifetimes come from research devices, not production hardware. Black’s comparison of aluminum and niobium to germanium is posed as a question, not a conclusion — it remains to be shown that alternative superconductors will follow silicon’s trajectory in microelectronics.
It is also unclear how soon C2QA’s materials advances will translate into fault-tolerant quantum systems, a goal that additionally requires advances in error correction, modular architectures, and control electronics beyond qubit materials alone. The report does not specify timelines or milestones for these outcomes.
C2QA’s Road Toward Fault Tolerance
Under Black’s leadership, C2QA says it will continue work on two fronts: improving superconducting qubit materials — including further study of tantalum surface oxidation — and developing silicon-compatible quantum devices that align with existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities. The center’s 28-institution structure, spanning national labs, universities, and industry, is expected to continue pairing materials scientists with qubit physicists, the approach that produced the tantalum results. Specific project timelines and upcoming milestones have not been announced.
Key Questions
Who is Charles Black?
Charles (Chuck) Black is director of the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), a DOE National Quantum Information Science Research Center led by Brookhaven National Laboratory, a role he took on in June 2025. He previously directed Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (2016–2025) and spent ten years as a research staff member at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center.
What is C2QA?
The Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage is a U.S. Department of Energy research center launched in 2020, led by Brookhaven National Laboratory. It spans 28 institutions from national labs, academia, and industry, and works on materials science and modular architectures intended to enable scalable, fault-tolerant quantum computers.
Why is tantalum being used for qubits?
According to C2QA, tantalum has fewer of the oxidation states suspected of degrading superconducting qubit performance compared with the aluminum and niobium traditionally used in transmon qubits. Researchers at Princeton built tantalum qubits and, with Brookhaven characterization facilities, linked surface oxidation to performance — producing qubit lifetimes exceeding one millisecond, described as the longest ever reported.
Does a one-millisecond qubit lifetime mean practical quantum computers are near?
No. Longer qubit lifetimes are an important step, but practical, fault-tolerant quantum computing also requires scalable manufacturing, error correction, and system-level integration. C2QA itself notes that manufacturing quantum hardware at scale remains a significant, unsolved challenge.
How is C2QA addressing manufacturing scalability?
The center is pursuing quantum devices built with silicon-compatible materials that align with existing semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, an approach informed by Black’s prior work at IBM on polymer self-assembly for semiconductor fabrication. The goal is hardware that could be produced at large scale using established industrial processes.
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