By Jorge Mercado Sunday, October 19th, 2025

Silicon Valley is the epicenter for technology and software companies. Wall Street is a global hub for finance. And in the near future, Santa Barbara might become as well recognized as those places as the premier spot for the quantum industry.

UC Santa Barbara, in particular, is hoping to continue playing a big role in that, as its California NanoSystems Institute incubator is housing the region’s first quantum startups, including the first purley quantum-focused startup, Qudara.

“When you think of where the breakthroughs in quantum computing are being done, Santa Barbara typically comes up in that equation, and that’s partly because of the big companies that are here and they’re here because we’re here and it creates this vibrant ecosystem,” Tal Margalith, the executive director for scientific initiatives and innovation at CNSI, told the Business Times.

Given the university’s strong ties in materials science, photonics, and semiconductor research, Santa Barbara was the perfect place for the quantum industry. A big factor in bringing that industry here happened in 2014 when Google reached out to recent Nobel prize winner for his role in advancing quantum mechanics, John Martinis, and his team to help build quantum processors.

By 2019, Google’s quantum lab developed the Sycamore processor, a 54-qubit chip, a breakthrough achievement. Two years later, Google set up its quantum AI lab full time in Goleta and in 2023, announced a 70-qubit chip.

Microsoft’s quantum hopes also have ties to the region. Back in February, a Microsoft team led by UC Santa Barbara physicists unveiled an eight-qubit topological quantum processor, the first of its kind. According to Microsoft, the breakthrough chip is the second milestone in its road to creating a quantum supercomputer.

“Santa Barbara is quickly becoming one of the country’s most vibrant centers for quantum technology. UCSB’s long history of excellence in materials science, photonics, and semiconductor research has laid the groundwork for a thriving regional ecosystem,” Galan Moody, professor of electrical and computer engineering at UCSB, told the Business Times.

But what excites Moody most about Santa Barbara’s quantum ties isn’t the breakthroughs of the past, it’s the startups and their potential to make ripples in the future — including one he helped co-found.

Moody, alongside CEO Chen Shang, founded Qudara earlier this year. In fact, it has only been a few months since the startup joined the CNSI incubator. But the company’s ambition is strong, as indicated by its tagline of “making quantum on demand.”

Shang told the Business Times that Qudara specifically works with quantum photonics. 

Single photons are the building blocks of quantum communication. The best single photon source that has ever been made with any physical platform is quantum dots. “Super fast, super bright and extremely high quality efficiency,” Shang said.

But the way these dots are placed on a semiconductor wafer, for example, is random, making it less useful. “And what we can do is place these emitters exactly at the locations we know on the wafer, which has never happened before,” Shang said.

This would be a major breakthrough. For example, random dot placement is a major obstacle to creating large-scale quantum computers. Precise placement would allow for consistent coupling and reliable interaction between qubits, greatly increasing the chances of the first large-scale quantum computer. This breakthrough would also have applicability in a slew of other technological advancements.

A graduate of Purdue, Shang was courted to come to UCSB by many people, including John Bowers. He said he always wanted to start something, but wasn’t sure what, at least until they discovered the solution, which is the basis for Qudara.

“I feel this is a good time to start something. We feel we are onto something good, so good people are willing to join, even with no money yet,” Shang said. “The location, the people, all of it makes me think this is a good time. This is like everything coming together.” 

Other startups leveraging quantum mechanics at CSNI include Nexus Photonics and Quintessent.

“This foundation is now driving real industry growth — quantum startups like Qudara are forming, partnerships with major tech companies are expanding, and UCSB is the nexus connecting world-class research with real-world applications,” Moody said.

Over the past decade, Santa Barbara quietly became the home for quantum advancements — something that became a lot less quiet on Oct. 8.

On that day, Michel H. Devoret of Yale and UCSB and Martinis of UCSB joined John Clarke of UC Berkeley as the 2025 laureates in physics, being given the Nobel prize for their discoveries on “quantum mechanical tunneling and energy quantization” during experiments in the 1980s. 

That national recognition brought the spotlight on what many locals already knew, which is Santa Barbara’s role in growing the industry.

“I think we’re just getting started,” Margalith said. “The truth is we’ve built a lot of infrastructure at UCSB and grown it over the last 10 years to really support these types of companies and I think we’re eager to see the next wave that hits the area post the Nobel announcement.”

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