Manoj Kumar Joshi, who spent eight years as a researcher at IQOQI Innsbruck, will receive the Infosys Prize 2026 in Physical Sciences for his advances in developing and demonstrating scalable quantum simulation with trapped ions. The award is India’s one of the highest honors for outstanding researchers under the age of 40. It comes with US$100,000 in prize money and will be presented at a ceremony in Bengaluru on 9 January 2027.
Quantum simulators are special-purpose quantum computers built to study complex many-body systems, including problems beyond the reach of today’s most powerful classical computers. By making such phenomena accessible to controlled experiments, they link fundamental physics with emerging quantum technologies. Much of the work recognized by the award given by Infosys science foundation was carried out in the trapped-ion labs at IQOQI Innsbruck in the groups of Rainer Blatt and Christian Roos.
From 20 to more than 50 qubits
Joshi’s innovations in cooling, individual control and measurement of long ion strings helped scale programmable quantum simulators from about 20 to more than 50 qubits. This expanded both what the machines can do and the physics they can explore.
Building on this platform, he took part in a series of key experiments. He contributed experimentally to the realization of the Schwinger model, a paradigmatic model in lattice gauge theory, in a self-verifying variational quantum simulation. He also led the experimental work on observing the quantum Mpemba effect. In this counterintuitive phenomenon, a quantum state that starts out farther from symmetry restores that symmetry faster than one that starts closer to it.
“Manoj combined remarkable experimental skill with a deep curiosity about the underlying physics,” says Rainer Blatt. “His work was essential in scaling our quantum simulators to more than 50 ions and in using them to explore questions that had previously been out of experimental reach. We are delighted to see his contributions recognized with this award.”
Mapping entanglement in a 51-ion simulator
A central achievement is his experimental leadership in reconstructing entanglement Hamiltonians in a 51-ion quantum simulator. The work characterized subsystems of up to 20 sites and revealed how different parts of a large quantum system are entangled with each other. It tested predictions of the Bisognano-Wichmann theorem from quantum field theory, adapted to lattice systems. It also made visible the transition from area-law to volume-law entanglement.
His other contributions from his time in Innsbruck include studies of emergent hydrodynamics in a long-range quantum magnet, quantum information scrambling and quantum-enhanced sensing on optical transitions.
Together, these results show how scalable quantum hardware and new measurement techniques can turn abstract theoretical ideas into experimentally accessible physics.
About Manoj Kumar Joshi
Joshi grew up in Uttarakhand, India. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Kumaun University, an M.Sc. in Physics from G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, and a postgraduate diploma in Physics from the Homi Bhabha National Institute. He then worked as a Scientific Officer at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai.
In 2014 he moved to Imperial College London as a Marie Curie Early-Stage Researcher. He completed his PhD on the coherent dynamics of trapped ions there in 2018 under Richard Thompson. From 2018 to 2026 he was a researcher at IQOQI Innsbruck. In April 2026 he joined the Singapore University of Technology and Design as an Assistant Professor, where he will develop next-generation quantum technologies based on large-scale trapped-ion arrays. His research combines scalable trapped-ion control, quantum simulation, entanglement characterization and quantum sensing.