Caltech Dedicates New State-of-the-Art Quantum Precision Measurement Lab Today

Caltech will dedicate the Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement on Wednesday morning, a four-story research building on California Boulevard whose central feature sits below ground: subterranean laboratories engineered to minimize the vibration, electromagnetic interference and environmental fluctuations that can affect sensitive experiments.

The building, near the southern edge of campus next to the Ronald and Maxine Linde Hall of Mathematics and Physics, will house research in quantum science, quantum information and gravitational-wave detection. Caltech says speakers at the ceremony will include the institute’s president, Thomas F. Rosenbaum, and Hirosi Ooguri, the Fred Kavli Professor of Theoretical Physics and Mathematics and chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy.

The center is named for Allen and Charlotte Ginsburg of Rancho Palos Verdes, whose naming gift made the building possible. A separate grant from the Sherman Fairchild Foundation funded the Kip Thorne Laboratories, which are housed within the building. Caltech has said an anonymous donor’s gift enabled the institute to establish the Institute for Fundamental Quantum Sciences, a research hub that will span the new building and additional spaces in nearby facilities.

Caltech broke ground for the project on Aug. 10, 2023. The institute’s Planning, Design and Construction office lists building occupancy as anticipated for fall 2026.

The four above-ground floors hold office and collaborative space, while the laboratory work is concentrated below grade. A seminar pavilion connected to the main building by a breezeway is intended for lectures and special events, and a tunnel links the center to the adjacent building.

Research planned for the center includes future technology and precision engineering for the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO; the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter; condensed matter and quantum theory work; and an atomic, molecular and optical experiment, according to Caltech’s facilities planning office.

“The Ginsburg Center for Quantum Precision Measurement will bring together researchers from across the Caltech campus—astronomers, biologists, chemists, computer scientists, engineers, physicists—united by their passion to understand the inner workings of nature,” Rosenbaum said in a Caltech statement at the project’s groundbreaking. “In state-of-the-art laboratories and open, interactive spaces, they will develop powerful new quantum devices and educate the next generation of leaders in quantum science and technology.”

At the 2023 groundbreaking, Rosenbaum also tied the building to what he called a “second quantum revolution,” saying the technologies the center is designed to advance include those for “recording gravitational waves, from measuring brain waves, from creating quantum computers, from developing new materials.”

Ooguri became chair of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy on Aug. 16, 2025, succeeding Fiona Harrison, who served as chair for the past decade and oversaw the start of the Ginsburg Center’s construction. Ooguri previously served as founding director of Caltech’s Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics from 2014 to 2025.

The dedication follows Caltech’s 132nd Commencement, held on Beckman Mall on June 12, where Kip Thorne — for whom the building’s signature labs are named — delivered the address.

The Caltech campus is at 1200 East California Boulevard in Pasadena. Project questions are directed by Caltech’s facilities office to GCQPM@caltech.edu.

“We now stand on the verge of a second quantum revolution,” Rosenbaum said at the 2023 groundbreaking, “and it is this vision that inspires Charlotte and Allen.”