Ignacio Cirac and Peter Zoller

Two theorists working in Innsbruck who, in the mid-1990s, translated the abstract quantum computer into a concrete laboratory design.

Their 1995 paper 'Quantum computations with cold trapped ions' proposed holding a row of ions in an electromagnetic trap, using each ion's internal states as a qubit, and using the shared vibration of the chain as a bus so that laser pulses could entangle any two ions. Within months the first ion gate was demonstrated by David Wineland's group at NIST.

Trapped ions remain among the most accurate qubits in existence, and the scheme is the template for the whole class. Cirac later led work on using atoms and ions as quantum simulators, closing the circle with Feynman.