Photo by Jack Lin on Unsplash
IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) today announced a new three-year collaboration in quantum computing research and training. At NUS, the partnership will be led by the Quantum Engineering Programme (QEP), a national initiative that helps researchers translate research in quantum science and technologies into commercial products. QEP is supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore (NRF), and hosted at and managed by NUS.
As a member of the IBM Q Network(TM), QEP researchers in Singapore will have access via the cloud to the IBM Quantum Computation Center, which has 15 of the most-advanced universal quantum computing systems available, including a 53-qubit qubit system--which has the most qubits of a universal quantum computer available for external access in the industry, to date. The collaboration will provide excellent training opportunities for researchers and also promote partnerships between academia and industry to develop new software in quantum computing and to advance research in the field.
IBM will also organise local Qiskit hackathons and developer camps to increase awareness, skills and capabilities in quantum computing. Qiskit is an open-source quantum software framework to create and run quantum computing programmes, and it has more than 325,000 downloads.
"Singapore is a global hub where innovation is driven by a strategic combination of talents, world-class research and a vibrant tech-transfer ecosystem. To strengthen this edge for decades to come, NUS is pleased to be the host of the QEP. The funding from this programme aims to bring together expertise across several universities to drive the advancement of quantum technology," said Professor Chen Tsuhan, NUS Deputy President (Research and Technology). "This partnership with IBM will potentially open up avenues for researchers to apply quantum computing to different fields, including chemistry, materials science, biology, finance and cybersecurity, particularly those dealing with uncertainty and constrained optimisation. The know-how and experience gained will help ensure that Singapore is ready to harness the quantum revolution for social and economic benefits."
"Given Singapore's investment in building skills and cutting-edge technology, the country is well poised to become quantum ready," said Dario Gil, Director of IBM Research. "Quantum computing will begin significantly transforming the industrial landscape over the next decade, but before this can be achieved, we need to continue to grow the quantum community, globally."
In 2016, IBM was the first company to make universal quantum computers accessible via the cloud. An active community of more than 200,000 users have run hundreds of billions of executions on real IBM Quantum hardware, and have published more than 200 research papers based on these experiments. IBM is also the first company to have commercial clients via the IBM Q Network, a community of more than 100 Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, research labs, education institutions and governments working with IBM to advance quantum computing.
With this collaboration, NUS joins this worldwide community for the opportunity to collaborate with IBM and other network organizations on potential practical quantum computing applications. The goal of the IBM Q Network is to accelerate the education, research and commercialization of practical quantum technologies.