Quantum mission kicks off; ₹6K cr for eight years
5 min read . Updated: 20 Apr 2023, 01:18 AM IST
PremiumOver the eight-year mission period, the government aims to help build up to 1,000 qubits of quantum computing power, and 2,000 km of quantum communications network in India.
New Delhi: Cutting-edge quantum computing research that could transform cybersecurity, drug research, space applications and finance got a big boost on Wednesday with the Union cabinet approving a ₹6,003.65 crore National Quantum Mission (NQM) that will run till FY31. The mission, first conceived two years ago, will attempt to create a domestic ecosystem for quantum computing research and application development, including support to industries and startups working in this field.
Over the eight-year mission period, the government aims to help build up to 1,000 qubits of quantum computing power, and 2,000 km of quantum communications network in India. The investment will primarily go into building quantum computing power for research.
Details of the mission were announced by Union information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Anurag Singh Thakur and minister of state (MoS) for science and technology Jitendra Singh on Wednesday.
“India is today one of the biggest utilizers and stakeholders of information technology (IT), and quantum technologies are essentially related with information processing and sharing. It can make information processing faster, more authentic, precise and more secure," Singh said after a cabinet meeting.
The mission will work to build 20-50 qubits of computing power by FY26, up to 100 qubits by FY28, and eventually, 1,000 qubits by FY31. In the first three years, the government will also incentivize setting up of up to 1,500km of quantum communications networks using satellite services, Singh said at a press conference. A qubit is the fundamental building unit of quantum computing, similar to how bits are fundamental units of classical computing.
To be sure, the final amount of ₹6,003.65 crore is less than ₹8,000 crore proposed for a five-year mission proposed in the FY21 Union budget. Addressing this, Thakur said, “As the technology is evolving, the understanding is evolving too. What wasn’t realized yesterday, is being realized today. Even applications on it will develop accordingly, including investigative healthcare or data security. Other nations are also at research phases right now, so we’re not lagging behind, but are at par with the global leaders, which include the US, Canada, Austria, Finland, China and France."
Singh said that the mission will undertake four thematic hubs for quantum research at top national universities, which include quantum computing, quantum communications, quantum sensing and meteorology, and quantum materials and devices.
Industry experts and stakeholders welcomed the approval of the NQM, despite a smaller sum being offered.
Anil Prabhakar, principal investigator, Centre of Excellence on Quantum Information, Communication and Computing at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, said that the academia is “happy" with the announcement, though the targets are stiff.
“The Centre has set reasonably strong targets over three-, five- and eight-year time frames, and one of the targets is the quantum communications network. As a result, some technology demonstrations will now be out on the field within aggressive timelines, which will require the academia to undertake a lot of translational research in order to turn theoretical applications into reality," Prabhakar said.
He added that academic research institutes will need to collaborate with startups and research labs to achieve these goals Such initiatives will be key to building the quantum hardware and communications networks that the mission has aimed for.
“Building these networks will be crucial, inherently from a security standpoint. Quantum technologies among global geographies are already reaching Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 5 and 6, which can expose highly advanced security threats to the presently existing technology infrastructure. This makes it imperative for us to also upgrade our networks accordingly," Prabhakar said.
TRL is a scale numbered from one to nine, rating a technology or a product in terms of how advanced they are in terms of commercial deployment. While one signifies the earliest concept stages of research, nine denotes a product to be ready for mass-market commercial use cases.
Prabhakar added that the budget allocated under NQM is enough to meet “moving targets" in terms of the amount of investments needed for quantum research, and the demand for quantum computing power that would grow as the mission progresses.
Others, however, expressed caution. Preeti Syal, an ethical artificial intelligence (AI) policy expert, said that assigning a budget in the last year of a government may need further clarity in the long run.
“This is money that is allocated, but unless it is already spent towards the enlisted goals within the stipulated time, the budgets will lapse. This has happened previously as well, which is likely why the government has distributed the mission over eight years," she said.
Syal said it remains to be seen if the complications of infrastructure creation towards quantum computing are fully understood by the mission’s stakeholders and promoters, in terms of capital allocation, industry participation and enabling access to resources for academia.
On this, Prabhakar said that the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity)’s Quantum-enabled Science and Technology (QuEST) project, established at the International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Hyderabad in 2020, laid the groundwork for creating a workforce skilled in building quantum hardware in partnership with institutes. The project was assigned a budget of ₹80 crore.
“This is a great move indirectly for corporate firms, even if this does not directly benefit us. This is because when we speak to the academia and government agencies on proof of concept (PoC) quantum application development, most of the time, we get pegged back because of the amount of funding available to run such research initiatives. This can not only see larger funds being allocated to academic institutions, but also bolster R&D initiatives of corporate arms," said Nikhil Malhotra, global head of Makers Lab, Tech Mahindra.
The IT services firm currently undertakes quantum application research projects under its Makers Lab, under a memorandum of understanding with Finland’s IQM Computers in December last year for the same.
“While it remains too early to say, incorporating the National Quantum Mission may see a rise in quantum application projects, and the first monetizable deals for the same could come up for India’s services sector by FY26 at the earliest," he added.
Research and industry applications on quantum computing have been on the rise elsewhere too. On 12 April, Department of Science and Technology (DST)-backed, Bengaluru-based Raman Research Institute signed a partnership agreement with the Indian Navy to build secure maritime communications using quantum technologies.
On 6 March, IT services firm HCLTech announced a partnership with Microsoft, under which, HCLTech’s quantum research and applications division, Q-Labs, will offer its clients quantum applications by using Microsoft’s cloud-based quantum computing platform, Azure Quantum.