As India makes progress in quantum technology, a premier Russian scientific institution has shown interest in collaborating with Indian research institutes to build quantum applications and hardware for public services.
The non-profit Russian Quantum Center said that a formal proposal will be presented to form such a partnership with India at the next meeting of the BRICS grouping of nations that comprise Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa scheduled for next year.
Russian institutes are already in talks with individual research centres in India to collaborate on developing various aspects of quantum technologies, said Ruslan Yunusov, co-founder of the Russian Quantum Center. However, an official proposal is expected to be presented before India to explore possible collaborations in the upcoming BRICS meeting to be hosted by Russia.
“There are no signed contracts yet, but India has done a lot of work around quantum technology. We are already in talks with some research institutes in India to explore areas where we can use their expertise and also share our knowledge and work in the field,” said Yunusov.
Since India announced its National Quantum Mission in April, several rounds of talks with Russian delegations have been undertaken for collaborations, but currently these discussions are limited to individual institute level, an official of the department of science and technology said. No decision on partnerships has been taken by the government to share knowledge or technology with the Russian government.
“It is common for institutes to express interest in knowledge and technology sharing, but nothing concrete has come from it yet,” the official said, requesting anonymity.
Currently, all talks and meetings around quantum technology partnerships are happening between individual institutes and not as a part of India’s quantum mission, said Venugopal Achanta, director of the National Physical Laboratory. “Russia has done a lot of work around quantum technology and there is scope for partnership, but at present these are limited to individual level,” Achanta said.
In April, India’s cabinet approved the quantum mission with an estimated allocation of ₹6,003 crore in the next eight years, with an aim to scale up scientific and industrial research, and development for quantum technologies. This mission will add India in the list of six countries to have developed quantum computers and have invested in R&D around quantum technologies.
Quantum technology is based on the principles of quantum mechanics developed in the early 20th century to describe nature at the scale of atoms and elementary particles. Using quantum superposition, a set of unbreakable codes or super speedy information processing quantum computers are able to mimic several classical computers working in parallel.
Quantum technology is manifested through applications in secure communication, disaster management through better prediction, computing, simulation, chemistry, health care, cryptography and imaging, among others. (Hindustan Times)