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Quantum Research Partnerships in India

The Indian government is prioritizing quantum computing with a $1 billion allocation to develop applications. Leading scientific institutions are ramping up quantum research and partnering with industry. IBM recently partnered with IIT Madras, providing access to its quantum systems, and they have seen adoption in India grow. Tech Mahindra is partnering with universities to develop applications in areas like quantum computing, AI and the metaverse through its Makers Lab. The Indian government has also established a partnership between AWS and MEITY to set up a Quantum Computing Applications Lab providing researchers access to cloud-based quantum systems to develop applications.

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55 views2 pages

Quantum Research Partnerships in India

The Indian government is prioritizing quantum computing with a $1 billion allocation to develop applications. Leading scientific institutions are ramping up quantum research and partnering with industry. IBM recently partnered with IIT Madras, providing access to its quantum systems, and they have seen adoption in India grow. Tech Mahindra is partnering with universities to develop applications in areas like quantum computing, AI and the metaverse through its Makers Lab. The Indian government has also established a partnership between AWS and MEITY to set up a Quantum Computing Applications Lab providing researchers access to cloud-based quantum systems to develop applications.

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karan patel
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RAMPING UP RESEARCH

Taking a quantum leap with industry,


academia tie-ups
[email protected]

With the Indian government prioritising quantum computing (QC) with an allocation of Rs 8,000 crore ($1
billion) to set up the National Mission for Quantum Technologies and Applications, some of India’s foremost
scientific institutions are ramping up quantum research and partnering with industry to bring the research to
real-life applications. While the hardware prowess still lies with a limited number of entities – the largest
being IBM – software firms are tapping quantum researchers in academia to jointly develop business use
cases around the technology.
Given its base of tech talent, India is also seen to be in a unique position to build leadership in QC. India can
tap into its AI/ML specialists, and train them to jump into quantum, experts say. Physics majors and
mathematicians can also play a key role in the tech, but more curriculum building at the bachelors level is
seen to be the need of the hour.
IBM recently tied up with IITMadras, making the latter the first Indian institution to join IBM’s Quantum
Network to advance QC. The program has over 180 partners globally, and IBM says it is in discussions with
more Indian universities. IIT Madras’ Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing
(CQuICC) will get cloud-based access to IBM’s advanced QC systems and expertise to explore practical
applications.
Amith Singhee,
director of IBM Research India, says they have seen tremendous adoption in India for IBM’s
quantum computers. “Right from the student community to enthusiasts logging on and trying out
programmes, India is in the top five countries in the world for us (in terms of adoption),” he says. In August
2021, IBM Quantum and IIT Madras also jointly offered a QC course on the NPTEL (National Programme
on Technology Enhanced Learning) platform to over 10,000 participants. IBM has also provided over-the-
cloud access of its quantum systems to institutions including Indian Institute of Science Education &
Research (IISER) Pune, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, and various IITs.
Tech Mahindra has partnered with Mahindra University to set up a Makers Lab that spearheads
R&D in QC,
XAI (Explainable AI), and metaverse. While Tech Mahindra will provide the required software, the
knowledge of quantum comes from academia, the company says, adding that more such partnerships are on
the cards. “We are two to three years away from a time when quantum becomes a field to reckon with and
can augment AI in more complex applications,” Nikhil Malhotra, global head of Makers Lab at Tech
Mahindra, says. Tech Mahindra today has a 5-member team comprising PhDs, physicists and techies
working on QC, headed by Malhotra. “In around one-and-ahalf years, our team will scale up as more clarity
emerges around use cases,” he says. “Today we have inquiries and discussions from customers who wish to
understand more on how QC impacts them,” he adds.
A major public-private partnership for quantum is that
between AWS and MEITY (Union ministry of
electronics & IT). It was established in 2021 with the objective of setting up a Quantum Computing
Applications Lab (QCAL). Under this, Amazon provides credits for its quantum simulation system ‘Amazon
Braket’ to select quantum research proposals from academia and industry, and MEITY and other partner
organisations including Mphasis and Fractal provide mentorship and guidance to the projects. The second
cohort of QCAL went live in September, and this time research proposals were invited outside of academia,
to include individual techies, scientists, and companies working on quantum applications. “This is the first
such government-level partnership on quantum for Amazon globally. The purpose was to provide researchers
working on on-premise quantum computers access to on-demand and cloudbased quantum systems,”
Kanishka Agiwal, head of service lines at AISPL, AWS India and South Asia, says.

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