Science Minister Lord Patrick Vallace opened the UK’s first National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) on Friday, October 25 at the Harwell Campus in Oxfordshire. The new national quantum laboratory will be home to quantum computing, innovations in AI technology, energy, healthcare, and many more.
The laboratory situated in Harwell will have twelve quantum computers that open up possibilities for emerging technologies. These systems are not restricted to Government usage but provide open access to anybody with a valid use case like businesses and academics. The centre will open great opportunities for students with the quantum apprenticeship programme, 30 PhD studentships, summer placements, and crash courses that they offer.
NQCC is a 4000 square metre facility with more than 70 staff working there. It will be beneficial for private and public sectors with great technological growth in general. The state-of-the-art programme is a part of the ten-year quantum programme with an initial backing of 93 million pounds from the UKRI agency provided through the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC). An additional 50 million pounds has also been invested through the Technology Missions Fund.
The systems at the NQCC will include spin qubits from Silicon Motion, trapped ion qubits from IonQ and Oxford Quantum Circuits, neutral atom systems from QuEra, photonic systems from ORCA, and superconducting qubits from Rigetti. These are some of the cutting-edge technologies used at the centre that can transform healthcare and energy.
UK is aiming for a quantum future that can take out the full potential of quantum technology from early diagnosis of diseases, finding gas leaks and hidden objects, to the creation of the quantum internet. UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) has already been using quantum computers to build neural networks and NQCC will focus on solving real-world problems with quantum computing offering substantial solutions.
NQCC offers energy grid optimisation that can analyse large data minimising energy, speed up drug recovery by analysing molecular structures, faster diagnosis and development of new medicines, more accurate climate predictions, and AI advancements, especially in areas like medical diagnostics and fraud detection.
The UK Science Minister Lord Vallance said at the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) at Edinburgh that the National Quantum Computing Centre masks a vital step forward in the UK’s efforts to advance quantum technologies, will focus on making quantum computers practically useable at scale, and will foster some of the biggest challenges. He also added that the UK will be able to seize the economic benefits of its leadership in quantum technologies.
The normal computers we use today use bits that can be 0 or 1, whereas quantum computers use qubits, which can be 0 and 1 simultaneously. This nature of qubits enables it to encode more information than bits and quantum computers are more energy efficient with more memory than classical computers.
NQCC will have a major role in ensuring that the UK remains the leader in the quantum technology field with vast funds from UKRI for its hardware and software development and application.
Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser, the UKRI Chief Executive said that the UK NQCC is central to its critical work, bringing together internationally leading researchers and technologists from across academia and industry to ensure that the UK’s quantum computing ecosystem thrives, delivering benefits to people across the UK and beyond.
The UK with its responsible innovation strategy has already set out its safe and ethical use of quantum computing earlier this year and NQCC will be following this and will be working as a hub that connects businesses, academics and government together. They also have a user engagement program called SparQ which works with leading industry leaders in energy, healthcare and finance to bring this innovative computing technology to daily usage.
Related: Google’s Sycamore Quantum Computing Chip Beats The Fastest Supercomputers
