Indian Institute of Technology-Madras becomes the first Indian institution to join the over 180-member network, by joining forces with the IBM Quantum Network.

As a member of the network, IIT-Madras will get cloud-based access to IBM’s advanced quantum computing systems and quantum expertise to explore practical applications and advance quantum computing skills development and research in India.

In the words of Sandip Patel, managing director, IBM India, “We believe the joint work will contribute towards India’s National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications to grow and prepare India for the future, further advancing India as one of the global powerhouses in computing”.

IIT-Madras’ Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing is expected to work on advancing core algorithms in research areas like quantum machine learning, quantum optimization, and applications research in finance. For that, they are said to deploy IBM Quantum services including the open-source Qiskit framework to explore areas such as quantum algorithms, quantum machine learning, quantum error correction and error mitigation, quantum tomography, and quantum chemistry, and to also advance and grow the quantum computing ecosystem in the country.

Researchers from IIT-Madras are reported to be stationed on research over the application of quantum computing with support from IBM Research India across domains.

Last year, IIT-Madras joined IBM’s Quantum Education Program to provide its students and faculty access to IBM quantum learning resources, quantum tools, and quantum systems for education and research purpose. In August last year, IBM Quantum and IIT-Madras also jointly offered a course on quantum computing on the NPTEL Platform to over 10,000 participants.

The IBM Quantum Network is a global community of Fortune 500 companies, startups, academic institutions and research labs working w ..

According to Anil Prabhakar, professor, Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Madras, “This collaboration builds on our successful collaboration on quantum computing education, last year, and promises to open up new avenues and directions for research and innovation”.