Interview with Prof. Andrew Briggs | University of Oxford

October 14th, 2025 - Interview with Andrew Briggs at the Gen AI and Youth Policy Workshop Co-hosted by Noēsis and the Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence.

Andrew Briggs is Emeritus Professor of Nanomaterials at the University of Oxford and Executive Chair of QuantrolOx. His research interests focus on nanomaterials for quantum technologies with machine learning for controlling the experiments, and the nanoscale thermodynamics of timekeeping and learning. From 2002-2009, he directed the UK Interdisciplinary Research Collaboration in Quantum Information Processing (QIP IRC). From 2010-2020 he led grant making by Templeton World Charity Foundation. In 2021 he co-founded QuantrolOx to commercialise machine learning for tuning and characterizing quantum devices, with performance that exceeds what is feasible for humans and greatly accelerates progress in quantum computing.

He is a Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, Honorary Lay Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, Honorary Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, Fellow of the Institute of Physics, Fellow of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion and Member of Academia Europaea, and he serves on many advisory boards. 40 former members of his laboratory hold faculty positions, and almost as many are employed in quantum companies around the world. From his laboratory and QIP IRC former members have between them founded 12 early-stage companies, of which 10 are in quantum computing.

Andrew Briggs has over 650 publications, with more than 31,500 citations. His books for a general readership include “The Penultimate Curiosity: How Science Swims in the Slipstream of Ultimate Questions”, for which there is a documentary film and a six-book series for children; “It Keeps Me Seeking: The Invitation from Science, Philosophy and Religion”; and “Human Flourishing: Scientific Insight and Spiritual Wisdom in Uncertain Times”. His most recent book carries endorsements by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Astronomer Royal, and has won an ISSR 2023 Book Prize.

Read his book Human Flourishing: Scientific Insight and Spiritual Wisdom in Uncertain Times.