IIT Madras partners with IBM Quantum Network to provide quantum computing in India

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has partnered with the International Business Machines (IBM) Quantum Network to advance quantum computing skill development and research in the country, IBM said on Monday, September 12, 2022.

Furthermore, as a member of the IBM Quantum Network, IIT M will get cloud based access to IBM’s most advanced quantum computing systems and IBM’s quantum expertise to explore practical applications and realise the wide-ranging benefits of this technology for business and society, an official statement said.

According to the statement, IIT Madras’ Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing (CQuICC) will focus on advancing core algorithms in research areas such as Quantum Machine Learning, Quantum Optimization, and applications research in finance, a release said.

Furthermore, IBM Quantum services will be used alongside 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 advance and grow the quantum computing ecosystem in the country.

As a part of the collaboration, IIT Madras researchers will lead advancement of research in the application of quantum computing with support from IBM Research India to such domains that are relevant to India, the official statement said.

In addition, the statement noted that  IBM and IIT Madras have a long association in education and research areas like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. 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 purposes.

In a recent development, in August 2021, IBM Quantum and IIT Madras jointly offered a course on quantum computing on the NPTEL Platform to over 10,000 participants.

“The present initiative makes IIT Madras join more than 180 members of the IBM Quantum Network, a global community of Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, academic institutions, and research labs working with IBM Quantum technology to advance quantum computing and explore practical applications,” it said.

With inputs from PTI.