600 scientists, 50 startups working in quantum tech in India: Ajai Chowdhury

Chennai: There are about 600 scientists and 50 startups working in quantum technology in India, said Ajai Chowdhury, Chairman, Mission Governing Board, National Quantum Mission on Monday.

He was speaking at the first-ever International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing (QCMC 2024), to be hosted in India, by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras from August 26 to 30.

India launched the National Quantum Mission in April 2023 to build capabilities in quantum-related science and technology.

“As we started to work, we looked at how many scientists and PIs are working in this field and found that India had around 600 scientists and 40 to 50 start-ups in quantum technology,” said Chowdhury, while delivering an address on India’s National Quantum Mission.

He added that the country is doing “tremendous amounts of work” in the sector.

Chowdhury noted that soon after the launch, “we had an overwhelming response with close to 385 proposals received to set up thematic parks and other areas of quantum technologies”.

“The plan is to set up four independent Section 08 companies in which the thematic parks will be housed -- computing, communications, sensing, and materials. The whole objective is that we bring together all researchers under the thematic hub,” he added.

The Chairman noted that they plan to involve startups “in a big way”. He added that the mission will also disburse “grants to 10 to 15 good startups” “within the next three months”.

“We want to see them grow, scale, and go global,” Chowdhury said, adding that they also plan to rope in various software companies.

The QCMC 2024 aims to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration between physicists, computer scientists, and engineers in the quantum field; accelerate the translation of quantum research into practical applications; and build international partnerships to address global challenges in quantum technology.

It will also feature discussions on a broad spectrum of topics from foundational quantum theory to cutting-edge quantum technology applications.

“I am happy and excited that this Quantum Conference has come to India for the first time. We have large-scale data and problems that we were trying to solve in the classical computing era, in areas ranging from hardware to logistics and networking problems,” said Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director, IIT Madras.

He noted that quantum technologies can help “scale and speed up” to get “solutions in a time-constrained manner”.