Govt to work with TCS, HCL, others for Rs 6,000 crore quantum tech scheme

A quantum computer can solve some mathematical problems in minutes that could take a traditional computer millions of years to crack

The government is looking to work with Information Technology (IT) services majors like Tata Consultancy Services, HCL and Tech Mahindra to develop software for quantum technologies under a Rs 6,000 crore scheme, which will support Indian startups and scientists working in the emerging area.

“We are going to involve our software companies like TCS, HCL, Tech Mahindra etc., into this effort. We want them to do research on quantum technologies because there's a huge amount of algorithms required for quantum,” Ajai Chowdhry, co-founder of HCL and chairman of the mission governing board of the National Quantum Mission, told Moneycontrol.

He said that while the mission is firming up plans to set up four separate hubs for quantum hardware, quantum encryption, sensors, and materials by August, these centres are then expected to start the disbursal of onward funding to startups and researchers by September.

Each of the four hubs will be created at a top research institute like Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) or Indian Institute of Science (IISc) — and be set up as a non-profit company.

“We are making them Section 8 companies because we want the people who are going to head them to work like a CEO. We will give them all the authority and the funding to make decisions,” said Chowdhry.

“The next thing that we are working on is to get startups involved in it. There are close to about 50 startups already working in this area and we will provide them mentoring through these thematic hubs. We will also look at providing them some initial seed funding,” he added.

Quantum computing taps the unique phenomena of quantum physics to solve certain problems that are too complex for traditional computing.

The basic unit of information in traditional computing is a bit which can represent the binary of 0 or 1, whereas the quantum bit or qubit can represent multiple values from 0 to 1 simultaneously. This allows a quantum computer to solve some mathematical problems in minutes that could take a traditional computer millions of years.

Tech behemoths like Google, IBM and Intel have made billions of dollars of investments in quantum computing. According to an estimate, China has invested $15 billion even as global funding in the technology has topped $36 billion.

“A bank or an electrical grid in India can be attacked by an adequate quantum computer sitting in China. We must start working on making our country quantum secure. We are going to work with different agencies in the government to make them aware that something like this has to be done, or the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) should start to work on creating a policy for making all banks,” said Chowdhry.

“We will create our own quantum computers. For the period we don't have a quantum computer, we'll buy a few quantum computers to do research on. But we are not going to use quantum computers only on the cloud, because it's very expensive,” he added.

The quantum mission targets developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in 8 years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology.

Some of the other deliverables of the mission are satellite-based secure quantum communications between ground stations over a range of 2000 kilometres within India, long distance secure quantum communications with other countries, inter-city quantum key distribution over 2000 km as well as multi-node quantum network with quantum memories.

The mission aims to help develop magnetometers with high sensitivity in atomic systems and atomic clocks for precision timing, communications and navigation. It will also support design and synthesis of quantum materials such as superconductors, novel semiconductor structures and topological materials for fabrication of quantum devices. Single photon sources/detectors, entangled photon sources will also be developed for quantum communications, sensing and metrological applications.