Quantum mission kicks off; ₹6K cr for eight years

Over the eight-year mission period, the government aims to help build up to 1,000 qubits of quantum computing power, and 2,000 km of quantum communications network in India.

- Shouvik Das

Over the eight-year mission period, the government aims to help build up to 1,000 qubits of quantum computing power, and 2,000 km of quantum communications network in India. The investment will primarily go into building quantum computing power for research.

Details of the mission were announced by Union information and broadcasting (I&B) minister Anurag Singh Thakur and minister of state (MoS) for science and technology Jitendra Singh on Wednesday.

“India is today one of the biggest utilizers and stakeholders of information technology (IT), and quantum technologies are essentially related with information processing and sharing. It can make information processing faster, more authentic, precise and more secure," Singh said after a cabinet meeting.

The mission will work to build 20-50 qubits of computing power by FY26, up to 100 qubits by FY28, and eventually, 1,000 qubits by FY31. In the first three years, the government will also incentivize setting up of up to 1,500km of quantum communications networks using satellite services, Singh said at a press conference. A qubit is the fundamental building unit of quantum computing, similar to how bits are fundamental units of classical computing.

To be sure, the final amount of ₹6,003.65 crore is less than ₹8,000 crore proposed for a five-year mission proposed in the FY21 Union budget. Addressing this, Thakur said, “As the technology is evolving, the understanding is evolving too. What wasn’t realized yesterday, is being realized today. Even applications on it will develop accordingly, including investigative healthcare or data security. Other nations are also at research phases right now, so we’re not lagging behind, but are at par with the global leaders, which include the US, Canada, Austria, Finland, China and France."