Nonprofit quantum research · Pittsburgh
Ruqi Lab builds fault-tolerant quantum machines and the open tools around them — so the benefits of quantum arrive as public infrastructure, not private advantage.
01 / The premise
Founded in 2019. Nine people, four programs, and a refusal to treat openness as a marketing department.
Quantum computing promises a new kind of leverage over matter: the ability to simulate molecules, materials, and signals at a scale classical machines cannot reach. Whether that promise arrives as a public capability or a private moat is not a technical question. It is a question of who funds the work, who can inspect it, and who is invited to use it.
We are a working research lab, not an advocacy group. We build hardware, publish results, release software, and teach. But we choose problems by their public value, and we refuse terms that turn public research into private advantage. The lab exists to make quantum boring enough to be trusted, and useful enough to matter.
01
Code, data, calibration records, and negative results. If we cannot publish it, we do not do it.
02
Every program names who benefits, how, and what happens if the technology succeeds beyond the lab.
03
A tool is finished when a student elsewhere can install it, break it, and fix it without calling us.
02 / Research
We build the codes, decoders, and modular architecture needed for a machine that keeps working when individual qubits do not.
02We pair honest resource estimates with domain science to find the chemistry where quantum simulation could change a public decision.
03We turn quantum measurement into repairable instruments for water, energy, and health — and publish everything needed to build one.
04We build the shared infrastructure — software, standards, curricula, and procurement rules — that keeps quantum a public option.
03 / How we work
Reproducibility is not a final checklist. It is a design constraint that shapes the code we write, the metadata we keep, and the experiments we choose to run.
Source and specification. Every released tool ships with a way to test it without our hardware.
Calibration as data. The full state of the machine travels with every result.
Failures in public. Drift, dead channels, and abandoned approaches stay in the record.
04 / People
05 / Field notes
Open scienceOct 6, 2026
The control stack now records every calibration change as a reviewable commit — and ships with a test rig that runs on a laptop.
ResearchSep 18, 2026
A new preprint lays out an architecture — and, more usefully, the three assumptions most likely to break it.
LabAug 27, 2026
Two-year, fully funded fellowships for early-career researchers working on public-interest quantum science.
06 / Public benefit
Quantum Classroom
Lesson plans, printable experiments, and a teacher fellowship that puts quantum science in public school classrooms — without the hype.
Policy Studio
Task-based specifications, open calibration data, and model contract language for public agencies buying quantum services.
Community access
Public Lab Night every second Thursday, plus school visits, a repair café, and a standing invitation to our neighbors.
“A public that pays for the research should not have to take our word for what it means. They should be able to come in, look at the machine, and ask us anything.”Ellis Park
07 / Support
We are funded by foundations, public grants, and people who believe quantum research should belong to everyone. No paywalls. No exclusive licenses. No quiet terms.
