By: Manoj Jain (Scientist ‘F’)/ Rahul Neiwal (Scientist ‘D’)
Quantum Technology is one of the most promising emerging technologies. It is estimated by the experts and scholars that advent of the Quantum Technology would completely change the scenario in the technology world. A quantum computer of reasonable qubits has the capacity of computing power more than the all together capacity of the entire super computers on the globe. Quantum communication would make the travelling of information at more than the speed of light. Cryptography algorithm based on quantum phenomena would be capable to break the most sophisticated cyber security in few seconds. This unimaginable strength of the quantum power makes the whole world to invest heavily in the research and development of the Quantum Technology.
At present, most of the development in the Quantum Technology is at the research level. Much more efforts are required to bring the technology to the market and use for the strategic and commercial purpose. Many research laboratories under the multinational companies or federal governments are working in the various aspect of development of the technology in the different domains of the technology.
Quantum technology is a multidisciplinary area of research involving physics, electronics and engineering. Quantum Technology is about creating practical application based on Quantum Mechanics. Many fields such as Quantum Computing, Quantum Communication, Quantum Sensors, Quantum Cryptography, Quantum Metrology and Quantum Imaging are some of the applications based on quantum technologies.
Quantum Technology is based on three concepts of Quantum Mechanics i.e Quantum Superposition, Quantum Entanglement and Quantum Tunnelling which distinguish it from the all the contemporary technology. These concepts or the properties of the quantum mechanics cannot be imagining in the real world, but it is reality in the subatomic world. Many practical experiments and theories proved the validity of these concepts. These concepts are weird but true and laid the foundation of superiority of Quantum Technology.
Further increment in the computing power can be possible with the advent of Quantum Computing which has the capacity to increase computing power exponentially by using Quantum Gates and Quantum Transistors based on atoms and subatomic particle instead of classical transistors. The solution of quantum algorithms like Shor Algorithm and Grover Algorithm cannot be visualise by using a even a most efficient classical super computer, but these can be efficiently solved only through a quantum computer having reasonable qubits capacity.
The classical communication techniques even though having much advancement in its five generations still prone to many limitations such as the speed of travelling of information, hacking of information through eavesdrop or intercept, limitation of distance and etc. The Quantum Communication removed these limitations through its inherent quantum properties.
Realising the potential and strategic importance of Quantum Technology, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has initiated projects in this emerging area of technology. These projects addressthe focus areas of MeitY i.e. Quantum Computing, Quantum Communication, Quantum Cryptographyand Quantum Sensing.These projects have been initiated for promoting research activities, building state-of-the-art infrastructure and to build human resources in this niche area of technology.
Project titled “Centre of Excellence in Quantum Technologies (CoE-QT)” has been initiated in which IISc-Bangalore, RRI- Bangalore and C-DAC -Bangalore are participating. The centre is being equipped with the sophisticated infrastructure required for the development in the area of Quantum Technology. The major objective of CoE-QT includes development of 4-qubit quantum processor, demonstration of quantum communication over 100 Kilometer long fibre link, development of quantum algorithms and development of associated components.
In another major initiative, an indigenous quantum simulator (QSim) has been designed and developed by IISc-Bangalore, C-DAC (Hyderabad & Bangalore) and IIT (Roorkee). QSim is an indigenous toolkit that is serving as an important educational/research tool being used by students/researchers to the field of Quantum Computing.QSim allows researchers and students to write and debug Quantum Code that is essential for developing Quantum Algorithms. QSim is accessible via web portal https://qctoolkit.in and is currently set up with the PARAM SHAKTI supercomputing machine as the backend.
