National Quantum Mission entails a cost of Rs 6,000 cr
Addressing a press conference, Jitendra Singh, Minister (Independent charge), Department of Science and Technology (DST), said, “ The National Quantum Mission will help India take a quantum leap in this area of research. It will have wide-scale applications ranging from healthcare and diagnostics, defence, energy and data security.”
The Union Cabinet Wednesday approved the National Quantum Mission (NQM) in a bid to aid scientific and industrial research and development in quantum technology.
The mission involves a cost of Rs 6,003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31, and aims to put India among the top six leading nations involved in the research and development in quantum technologies.
NQM will mainly work towards strengthening India’s research and development in the quantum arena alongside indigenously building quantum-based (physical qubit) computers which are far more powerful and are able to perform the most complex problems in a highly secure manner.
It will target developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in eight years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology.
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 are among the other objectives of the mission.
The mission will 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.
Four ‘Thematic Hubs’ (T-Hubs) will be set up in top academic and national R&D institutes in the domains of quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum sensing and metrology, and quantum materials and devices. The hubs will focus on generation of new knowledge through basic and applied research as well as promote R&D.
Addressing a press conference, Jitendra Singh, Minister (Independent charge), Department of Science and Technology (DST), said, “ The National Quantum Mission will help India take a quantum leap in this area of research. It will have wide-scale applications ranging from healthcare and diagnostics, defence, energy and data security.”
DST will lead this national mission, supported by other departments. Presently, R&D works in quantum technologies are underway in the US, Canada, France, Finland, China and Austria.
Source:indianexpress.com