A device that began as an experiment in the basement of Stony Brook University's physics building has been named one of TIME's Best Inventions of 2026.

The device is Qu-MEM, a quantum memory built by Qunnect, a company founded by Stony Brook physics professor Eden Figueroa and two of his former graduate students. TIME placed it in the Experimental category of this year's list, which recognizes concept inventions and prototypes showing future potential. Stony Brook announced the recognition on October 15.

What the machine does

Qu-MEM is the first commercial quantum memory that works at room temperature, according to the university. Quantum memory is a core missing piece of a future quantum internet: a network that would carry quantum information with security guarantees that ordinary networks cannot offer. Most quantum hardware needs extreme cooling to function, which makes it hard to deploy outside a laboratory. Qu-MEM is an on-demand, warm-vapor, neutral-atom memory that fits in a standard server rack and is designed to work over the fiber-optic lines that already run under streets and between buildings.

The device is currently being used to expand SCY-QNET, a quantum network the university describes as America's largest quantum internet, linking Stony Brook with partner sites in the New York area.

From a campus basement to a company

The technology grew out of research led by Figueroa, an endowed professor of physics who directs the Stony Brook University Quantum Institute and holds a joint appointment at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He co-founded Qunnect with Mehdi Namazi, who earned his PhD at Stony Brook in 2018 and now serves as the company's chief science officer, and Mael Flament, a 2019 master's graduate who is its chief technology officer.

Stony Brook holds the patents on the underlying technology, and Qunnect builds its products on them under an agreement with the university, a path Stony Brook points to as a direct line from campus research to a commercial product. University president Andrea Goldsmith noted that the invention originated in the basement of the physics building, built by Figueroa and his then-graduate students.

A running theme on the Island

The TIME listing is the latest in a string of quantum milestones for the university. In August, Stony Brook and Brookhaven National Laboratory demonstrated the first wireless quantum link in the United States, another step in the same effort to stretch quantum networking beyond the lab.

TIME's Best Inventions list is published annually and spans categories from consumer products to medical devices, with the Experimental category reserved for technology still on its way to market.

Sources