Andrew Dzurak Receives Innovation Leadership Award at InnovationAus 2025
Diraq Founder and CEO, Professor Andrew Dzurak, has received the Innovation Leadership Award at the InnovationAus 2025 Awards for Excellence. The award recognizes his decades-long leadership in transitioning quantum technology from foundational physics into a scalable commercial reality.
Presented at Sydney Town Hall, the award highlights Professor Dzurak’s role in steering Diraq from a specialised research group at UNSW Sydney into a global force in the quantum industry. Under his leadership, Diraq is working to bypass the "exotic material" trap by building the future of compute on a familiar foundation: the silicon chip.
Diraq’s mission is centered on delivering utility-scale quantum processors manufactured within existing semiconductor foundries. By leveraging the world’s trillion-dollar chip-making infrastructure, Diraq is developing compact, energy-efficient systems designed to drop directly into the global data center environments of today.
The Judges praised Professor Dzurak’s “rare combination of scientific insight, commercial vision and national-interest leadership”, noting that his work positions Australia as a genuine contender in the global quantum race.
"This award is a testament to the extraordinary team at Diraq and the shared ambition we have to transform quantum computing from laboratory research into practical technology,” said Andrew Dzurak, Founder and CEO of Diraq. “Diraq’s quantum processers use the same silicon technology found in everyday electronics. By using existing manufacturing, we are building quantum processors that are powerful, energy-efficient, economical, and readily deployable.”
InnovationAus’s acknowledgment places Professor Dzurak among a select group of leaders driving Australia’s most critical technological advancements. Supported by organizations such as CSIRO and Investment NSW, the award underscores the growing importance of "foundry-ready" quantum solutions in the global race for high-performance computing.
