2026 Quantum Leadership Awards
The Quantum Leadership Awards celebrate impact—across sectors and across borders. From lab-to-market builders to public-sector architects, from academic pioneers to the organizations scaling solutions into the real world, these honorees represent the leading edge of the global quantum ecosystem.
The People AND Teams Building What’s Next in Quantum.
Quantum doesn’t move forward on theory alone. It moves because leaders take risks, build coalitions, publish the breakthrough, ship the system, fund the leap, write the policy, train the workforce—and refuse to stop at “maybe someday.”
The Quantum Leadership Awards honor the individuals and organizations catalyzing measurable progress across quantum science and technology—accelerating commercialization, research, policy, and workforce development at the speed this moment demands. Awardees will be announced and recognized at Quantum World Congress 2026.
QUANTUM LEADERSHIP AWARD CATEGORIESA Global Stage for Quantum’s Real MVPs.
The Quantum Leadership Awards celebrate impact—across sectors and across borders. From lab-to-market builders to public-sector architects, from academic pioneers to the organizations scaling solutions into the real world, these honorees represent the leading edge of the global quantum ecosystem. Explore the categories below.
Meet the Quantum Hall of Fame.
2024 & 2025 honorees represent the full stack of quantum progress—from foundational theory and hardware scaling to national strategy and global coalition-building. In other words, they’re kind of a big deal.
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Dr. Patricia "Patty" Lee
2025 INDUSTRY PIONEER OF THE YEAR
Quantinuum
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Sylvie Retailleau
2025 GOVERNMENT PIONEER OF THE YEAR
Professor at Université Paris-Saclay, Former Minister of the French Republic
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Dr. John Preskill
2025 ACADEMIC PIONEER OF THE YEAR
California Institute of Technology -
International Year of Quantum Science and Technology
2025 ORGANIZATION OF THE YEAR
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Dr. Jay Gambetta
2024 INDUSTRY PIONEER OF THE YEAR
IBM
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Dr. Cathy Foley
2024 GOVERNMENT PIONEER OF THE YEAR
Chief Scientist, Australia
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Dr. Jungsang Kim
2024 ACADEMIC PIONEER OF THE YEAR
Duke University
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Quantum Delta NL
2024 ORGANIZATION OF THE YEAR
Nominate a Leader for The 2026 Awards
Winners will be announced and recognized at Quantum World Congress 2026, September 22-24, at The Hotel at the University of Maryland in College Park. If you have questions about the nomination form, please send us an email at quantum@connecteddmv.org.
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We will recognize the following leaders for their impact:
Pioneer in Quantum
Government Awardee
Industry Awardee
Academic Awardee
Organization of the Year
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Nominees from US and international government, commercial, non-profit, academia, research, and non-government organizations are eligible.
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Individuals nominated for the government, industry, or academia Pioneer awards should have made personal contributions to leading-edge ideas, solutions, investments, or approaches that made a measurable change in quantum technology, policy, or workforce advances during the year.
Organizations or teams nominated for the Organization of the Year Award will have made a positive, definable impact on an industry, mission, use case, or challenge through the application of quantum or quantum-adjacent technology, tools, or methods.