Quantum mechanics, discovered in the beginning of the last century, has been an enormously successful theory of the nature, and has led to the development of many of today’s most widely used technologies that completely changed the landscape of our society. In past decades, profound progresses, made both in our understanding of exploiting quantum superposition and entanglement for new ways of information processing and in the experimental methods of coherent control and interaction of individual quantum particles, have given birth to an emerging field of quantum technologies, also known as the second quantum revolution, which moved beyond the first quantum revolution that simply exploited naturally occurring quantum effects. The second quantum revolution has been driving and enabling a new generation of classically impossible tasks ranging from unconditionally secure quantum communications, breathtakingly powerful quantum simulation and quantum computation, to extremely sensitive measurements.

 To promote the second quantum revolution, a new science foundation, the "Micius Quantum Foundation" was established thanks to generous donations (with a sum of 100 million Chinese yuan) from private entrepreneurs. One of the important missions of the Micius Quantum Foundation is to establish the “Micius Quantum Prize” to recognize the scientists who have made outstanding contributions in the field of quantum communications, quantum simulation, quantum computation, and quantum metrology. The revenue of the Micius Quantum Foundation is distributed in the form of prizes. Each honoree will receive a tax-free prize of one million Chinese yuan (about 150,000 US dollars) and a gold medal.