MeitY, AWS to establish Quantum Computing Applications Lab

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) will establish a Quantum Computing Applications Lab in the country, to accelerate quantum computing-led research and development (R&D) and enable new scientific discoveries.

The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers, to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.

Identifying problems

It will also help government bodies and the scientific community to identify problems and opportunities rapidly, and test real-world challenges through experiments and prototypes in a low risk environment.

Outcomes from these experiments will help researchers evolve the problem statements, proof-of-concepts, and prototypes that will lead to the development of new applications, models, and frameworks in quantum computing.

AWS will provide hosting with technical and programmatic support for the Lab. This initiative by MeitY will also provide scientific, academic, and developer communities access to a quantum computing development environment aligned with the government’s science and technology priorities.

“India has a rich legacy in science, technology, and innovation. We believe that India’s path forward will be driven by achieving world-class scientific solutions. Enabling our scientific community with advanced technologies plays a key role towards scientific advancements and learning,” Ajay Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY, said.

Processing information

Quantum computing is an emerging field that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information.

It has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, and lead to new breakthroughs that can transform chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, financial portfolio optimisation, machine learning, and much more.

“Limited access to quantum computing hardware and expertise, and complex infrastructure setup and management, are challenges that scientists and researchers face today, in their quest for scientific discovery. The Lab will provide the breadth and depth of AWS services to the research, academic, and scientific community to overcome these challenges and focus on innovation,” Rahul Sharma, President, Public Sector, AWS India and South Asia said.