Australian Government Invested A$26 million for Development of Advanced Quantum Computing

A$26 million for development of advanced quantum computing

12 Feb 2016

The Australian Government recently announced an investment of A$26 million over five years to support the development of advanced quantum computingin Australia.

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The funding, part of the new National Innovation & Science Agenda initiative, is being given to the Centre for Quantum Computation and Communications Technology (CQC2T) at the University of New South Wales (NSW).

The Centre is at the forefront of the race to build the world’s first functioning quantum computer.

In classic computing, information is represented in one of two states, either zero or one. In quantum computing, information can be stored in a large number of different states at the same time, meaning that quantum computers will have the astonishing potential to solve in minutes problems that now take conventional computers hundreds of years to process.

In October last year, the team at CQC2T announced a major quantum computing breakthrough, which was reported around the world. The NSW scientists found a way to incorporate quantum computing technology into silicon-based computer chips.

A significant advance and widely regarded, this has been reported as the first step in developing a practical quantum computing system because silicon, the building block of modern electronic devices, is cheap, easy to manufacture, and already widely available.

Quantum computing will have a transformational effect on the world as we know it today: the capacity to find information at lightning speed within a massive dataset will be a game changer in many fields, including aeronautics, finance, information technology, medicine and security.

‘It’s the space race of the computing era,’ says Professor Michelle Simmons, Director of the CQC2T at the University of New South Wales.

News Release Source : A$26 million for development of advanced quantum computing

Image Credit : UNSW