The Micius Quantum Prize is awarded every year since 2018 "for promoting the quantum information science and technology research". The recipients are awarded one million Chinese yuan (about 150,000 US dollars) and a gold medal. The prize is awarded by the Micius quantum foundation, which was established thanks to donations (with a sum of 100 million Chinese yuan) from private entrepreneurs. Chair of the selection committee is Chunli Bai, the president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The prize is named after Mozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher (~400 B.C) who founded the school of Mohism during the Hundred Schools of Thought period.

Laureates

YearImageLaureate[A]Country[B]Rationale[C]CategoryRef
2018David DeutschUnited Kingdom Israel"For his seminal conceptual contributions on quantum Turing machine and Quantum algorithm"Theory
Peter ShorUnited States"For his groundbreaking theoretical work on factoring algorithm and quantum error correction"
Peter ZollerAustria"For their outstanding theoretical contributions that enabled the scalable implementations of quantum information processing such as quantum computation with trapped ions, quantum simulation with ultracold atoms, and quantum repeaters"
Ignacio CiracSpain
Rainer BlattGermany Austria"For his pioneering experimental work on the realizations of quantum logic gates, multiparticle entanglement, quantum simulation, and quantum computing algorithms using trapped ions"Experimental
David WinelandUnited States"For his groundbreaking experiments that opened the way to quantum computing and quantum metrology with trapped ions"
2019Stephen WiesnerIsrael"For his original conceptual idea on conjugate coding that inspired the discovery of practical quantum cryptography"Theory
Charles H. BennettUnited States"For their inventions of quantum key distribution, quantum teleportation, and entanglement purification"
Gilles BrassardCanada
Artur EkertPoland United Kingdom"For his inventions of entanglement-based quantum key distribution, entanglement swapping, and entanglement purification"
Pan JianweiChina"For their groundbreaking experiments in multi-photon interferometry and free-space quantum transmission that enabled practically secure and large-scale quantum communications"Experimental
Anton ZeilingerAustria
2020Carlton M. CavesUnited States"For his foundational work on quantum metrology and quantum information theory, especially for elucidating the fundamental noise in interferometers and its suppression with the use of squeezed states."Theory
Hidetoshi KatoriJapan"For their groundbreaking achievements in precision quantum measurements, in particular for the development of extremely stable and accurate optical atomic clocks."Experimental
Jun YeUnited States
2021John ClarkeUnited States"For their leading roles in pioneering superconducting quantum circuits and qubits."Experimental
Michel H. DevoretFrance
Yasunobu NakamuraJapan
2022Not awarded
2023Nicolas GisinSwitzerland"For their important contributions in early quantum key distribution experiments using optical fibers."Experimental
John RarityUnited Kingdom
2024Not awarded
2025Immanuel BlochGermany"For the pioneering experimental realization of bosonic and fermionic Hubbard models in optical lattices as analog quantum simulators of strongly interacting many-body systems for comprehensive investigations of quantum phases, transport, and topological phenomena."Experimental
Tilman EsslingerGermany
Markus GreinerGermany