MeitY to establish Quantum Computing Applications Lab in collaboration with AWS
Quantum computing is an emerging field harnessing the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information and has the potential to solve computational problems beyond the reach of classical computers
Nidhi Singal | January 20, 2021 | Updated 05:18 IST
In an initiative to apply quantum computing to advance India's science and technology development initiatives and bolster the economy, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with AWS will establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country.
Quantum computing is an emerging field harnessing the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information and has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers. This new lab will help accelerate quantum computing-led research and development and enable new scientific discoveries. It will also provide quantum computing as a service to the government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering. It will identify quantum computing problem statements for experimentation from among Central and State Governments, Research Institutions, and Academia. It will work with subject matter experts from the government sector to define the problem statements, and make them public, inviting applications from researchers, academia, and organizations to address them. The Lab will then provide select applicants with access to quantum computing hardware, simulators, and programming tools, on-demand and at no cost, via Amazon Braket, that enables scientists and developers to build algorithms, conduct advanced simulations, and run experiments. Amazon Braket provides a development environment to enable users to explore and design quantum algorithms, test and troubleshoot them on simulated quantum computers, and run them on different quantum hardware technologies.