Why Neutral Atoms May Be The 'Transistor Moment' For Quantum Computing

InnovationWhy Neutral Atoms May Be The 'Transistor Moment' For Quantum ComputingByPaul Lipman,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)Jun 10, 2026, 09:45am EDTPaul Lipman is Chief Revenue Officer at Infleqtion, leading global growth efforts at the cutting edge of quantum technology. getty​In the modern world, we take for granted the transistors that enable everything from cell phones to supercomputers. However, in the early days of computing, the outcome was far from clear, as computing technology evolved through mechanical systems, electromechanical relays, vacuum tubes and other techniques before transistors ultimately became the standard.In the 1950s, one of the world’s largest computers was the AN/FSQ-7, a Cold War air defense system that weighed 250 tons, consisted of 49,000 vacuum tubes and drew 3 MW of power. Vacuum tube systems were ultimately eclipsed by transistors, which proved cheaper, faster, smaller, more reliable and manufacturable at scale. Today's flagship cell phones each contain tens of billions of them.Quantum computing today feels somewhat akin to classical computing before the advent of the transistor. Popular approaches include superconducting circuits, trapped ions, neutral atoms and photonics. We have not yet converged on a dominant platform in large part because qubits (quantum bits) are far harder to build and control than classical bits. Qubits must be precisely controllable, protected from noise that can decohere their delicate quantum state, entangleable with one another and scalable into practical, error-corrected systems. The platform that ultimately leads the quantum computing industry will not do so on performance alone—it will also need to address manufacturability, energy efficiency, facility footprint and commercial relevance.Neutral atom quantum computers trap...