Two physicists involved with efforts by Alphabet Inc.’s Google to build working quantum computers have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics together with a colleague from the U.K.

John M. Martinis, an American physicist who previously worked at Google to build a quantum computer, will share the 11 million-krona ($1.2 million) award with Michel H. Devoret and John Clarke for discoveries that are helping advance quantum computing and sensors, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm said in a statement Tuesday.

The award follows burgeoning interest in quantum computing, a field that has been confined to academia for the past few decades but is moving into real-world applications.

Quantum computing harnesses the mechanics of quantum physics to create new kinds of computers that can solve problems much faster than classical machines. That speed means the technology offers, in theory, major leaps forward in diverse fields such as cybersecurity, drug development and financial modeling.

Clarke, who was born in the UK, is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Devoret, from France, joined his research group there in the 1980s, as did Martinis.

The three laureates conducted experiments with an electrical circuit in which they demonstrated both quantum mechanical tunneling and quantized energy levels in a system big enough to be held in the hand, the committee said. That’s provided opportunities for developing the next generation of quantum technology, including quantum cryptography, quantum computers and quantum sensors.

The work was “pivotal” for superconducting qubit systems, a key technology in quantum computing, according to Gregory Quiroz, principal scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

“The rapid progress in this field over the past few decades — in part fueled by their critical results — has allowed superconducting qubits to go from small-scale laboratory experiments to large-scale, multiqubit devices capable of realizing quantum computation,” said Quiroz.

Martinis worked at Google from 2014 to 2020 “to build a useful quantum computer, culminating in a quantum supremacy experiment in 2019,” according to a biography published by UC Berkeley. Google’s subsequent claim of quantum supremacy kickstarted a race among technology companies and startups to dominate quantum computing, with Google, International Business Machines Corp. and Microsoft Corp. all spending billions of dollars on development.

Martinis is a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the co-founder of Qolab, a startup developing utility-scale superconducting quantum computers.

Devoret is a professor at Yale University as well as the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also cited in a recent breakthrough at Google’s quantum artificial intelligence division, which last year revealed a computer powered by its Willow quantum chip solved a problem in 5 minutes that could never have been solved by the world’s most advanced supercomputer.

To date, practical challenges in quantum computing such as high error rates and the need to keep some types of machine in near-zero temperatures have so far confined the technology to experiments. HSBC Holdings Inc. claimed a world-first breakthrough in September by deploying quantum computing in financial markets, using an IBM processor to improve bond price predictions in a trial.

Annual prizes for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace were established in the will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish inventor of dynamite, who died in 1896. A prize in economic sciences was added by Sweden’s central bank in 1968.

The laureates are announced through Oct. 13 in Stockholm, with the exception of the Nobel Peace Prize, whose recipients are selected on Friday by the Norwegian Nobel Committee in Oslo.

Last year’s physics Nobel was awarded to Geoffrey Hinton and John Hopfield for their foundational work in machine learning and artificial intelligence. Other famous physics laureates include Albert Einstein in 1921 for services to theoretical physics and Marie Curie, together with her husband Pierre, for research on radiation in 1903.

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