The National Quantum Mission’s governing board will offer grants to 10 to 15 startups in the next three months to enable them grow, scale and go global, said Ajai Chowdhury, board chairman at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras.
He was speaking here on Monday at the inauguration of the 16th edition of the five-day international conference on quantum communication, measurement and computing (QCMC 2024), which is being held for the first time in the country.
The institute’s Centre for quantum information, communication and computing is coordinating the event at the IIT-Madras Research Park. It is sponsored by the institute, Mphasis F1 Foundation and KLA.
Mr. Chowdhary said the country had around 600 scientists and 40 to 50 startups on quantum technology. “The plan is to set up four independent section 08 companies in which the thematic parks will be housed: computing, communications, sensing and materials,” he said, adding that the companies were expected to take products developed in India to the other parts of the globe because they have the reach required for it.
“The institute is advancing India’s quantum frontier with cutting-edge research. The institution also plays a crucial role in India’s National Quantum Mission, contributing to the development of home-grown quantum technologies,” he said.
Institute director V. Kamakoti said that India had large scale data and extremely complex problems that it wanted to solve using heuristic.
“We have reached a stage where due to enormous size of the data and the problem the heuristics are no longer optimal,” he said. Researchers had started looking into quantum technologies to help them scale and expedite the heuristics to get solutions in a time-constrained manner, he explained.
Mete Atature, chair, steering committee, QCMC 2024, University of Cambridge, said representatives from 16 countries were participating in the conference that traditionally brought together mathematicians, engineers, researchers besides other stakeholders.
