After a delay of nearly four years, the National Quantum Mission is set to take off with multiple initiatives including setting up a grant for start-ups that need funding ranging ₹10-50 crore, launching India’s first quantum computer achieving computation of 6 qubits over the next few months, and setting up four companies under section 8 to undertake various activities under the mission. These companies will be run under the aegis of premier institutes like Indian Institute of Technology or the Indian Institute of Sciences

In an exclusive interview with  businessline, Ajai Chowdhry, Co-founder of HCL, & Chairman of the Mission Governing Board for the National Quantum, outlined a concrete blueprint to spend the nearly ₹6,000 crore corpus for the mission.

Four verticals

Amongst the targets set to be achieved, Chowdhury told the paper that the mission will be setting up four Section 8 companies across the four verticals of quantum technologies that the mission wants to incubate namely –  computing, communication, measurement and sensing.

“These Section 8 companies will be run under the aegis of premier institutes like Indian Institute of Technology or the Indian Institute of Sciences. The institutes have been shortlisted and the announcements will be made soon,” Chowdhry told the paper. While the mission struggled to spend its previous corpus of funds announced in 2020, since January of this year there is clear momentum in the dispersal of funds.

According to Chowdhry, the mission has received approximately 385 proposals from scientists, institutes and quantum startups keen to develop cutting edge quantum technologies. According to Chowdhry the mission will start shorlisting projects to receive funds from the next month.

India’s foray into advancing its quantum capabilities has been in the works for nearly four years with limited results. The union government announced its plans to dedicate nearly ₹8,000 crore for developing indigenous quantum technologies, however no further progress was made. Chowdhry who co-founded HCL, one of India’s largest IT companies, was appointed as the Chairman of the Mission Governing Board and given a revised corpus of funds of ₹6,000 crore to dedicate to the mission going forward. Nearly 10 months on, Chowdhry believes that the mission is “absolutely on track.”

The mission is soon to announce the four thematic hubs of the mission in the coming months. “These hubs will run independently as Section 8 companies and will appoint their own CEOs. The job of these hubs is to advance quantum technologies in their respective verticals even further,” Chowdhry said. 

According to Chowdhry, two verticals in particular namely quantum computing and quantum communication are emerging to be the most promising especially as India has made advancements in these verticals independent of the mission. 

Quantum computers harness the spooky physics of quantum mechanics to unlock computation that is vastly different from even the latest supercomputers. The Department of Science and Technology was investing into quantum computing even before announcing the mission as a part of its “Pre NQM” programme called the Quest- “a group of premier institutions led by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research will be launching India’s first quantum computer in September which will achieve computation of 6 qubits.”

Goal of the mission

According to Chowdhry, the goal of the mission is to establish a quantum computer with a computation of 20-50 qubits in the next three years, 50-100 qubits in the next five years and 50-1000 qubits in the next 10 years. To put these computational capabilities in context, on average internationally quantum computers have processing capabilities of 20-50 qubits at present. Chowdhry believes that it is essential for India to have its own homegrown quantum computer. “China, for instance, has the highest investment numbers by state into quantum computing surpassing even the US. These emerge as big threats for our national security if China ever chooses to use its computing capabilities to target critical infrastructure in India, such as our electrical grids or financial infrastructure,” he said. Chowdhry believes that India needs its own computing capabilities to fend off such attacks. 

The mission is expected to deliver results in the field of quantum communication as well where they will likely lean on private start-ups. “We already have an ecosystem of 4-5 Indian start-ups selling commercial quantum communication products to defense and other sectors,” Chowdhry said.

In order to aid the private sector in this area, Chowdhry aims to set up “India’s most comprehensive grant for deep tech start-ups.” Instead of the typical ₹10-50 lakh grants usually given by the government to tech start-ups, Chowdhry’s team is evaluating grants worth ₹10-25 crore in this space to match the vast capital expenditure needed to create products in these domains. 

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