UK National Quantum Computing Centre to house 12 quantum computers
NQCC will offer open access to industry, academia and other business sectors across the UK
The National Quantum Computing Centre has formally opened in Harwell, Oxfordshire. It will offer open access to 12 quantum computing platforms, currently in development, to industry and academia.
The Centre will also run a dedicated quantum computing apprenticeship scheme, host 30 PhD studentships, as well as providing training in summer placements and crash courses for IT professionals from industry.
The aim of the 4,000 square meter facility is to encourage use of quantum computing throughout the economy, from healthcare to energy, as well as providing facilities foracademic research. The intention is to help foster collaboration and innovation, and to become a key driver of breakthroughs using quantum computing.
In particular, the Centre will be running research into:
- Energy grid optimisation, using quantum computers to analyse real-time data from the power grid to help improve balancing of supply and demand – an increasingly critical issue with the introduction of highly variable renewable power sources;
- Speed-up drug discovery by using quantum computers to analyse molecular structures to improve existing medicines and help develop new treatments;
- Climate forecasting, by being able to process vast volumes of data more quickly so that more accurate forecasts can be made;
- Artificial intelligence, improving the use of AI and pattern matching across a range of critical areas, from medical diagnostics to fraud detection.
The aim is that the application of quantum computing will radically speed-up research and development in all these areas, slashing compute time from days, months and even years, to mere seconds, minutes or hours.
The Centre was opened by science minister Lord Vallance, chief scientific advisor throughout the UK’s Covid outbreak. He claimed that it would help make quantum computing accessible to organisations that might not otherwise be able to acquire or afford it.
“By making its facilities available to users from across industry and academia, and with its focus on making quantum computers practically useable at scale, this Centre will help them solve some of the biggest challenges we face, whether it’s delivering advances in healthcare, enhancing energy efficiency, tackling climate change, or inventing new materials,” said Vallance.
It follows the launch of five Quantum Hubs in July 2024, hosted at the University of Glasgow, University College London (UCL), the University of Cambridge, the University of Birmingham and Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.
These hubs are currently focused on a variety of research projects.
For example, the hub located at the University of Birmingham is researching quantum sensing, imaging and timing, not just to improve medical diagnostic techniques in imaging, cancer diagnoses, blood tests and infectious diseases, but also for cameras to better detect gas leaks.
The hub led by the University of Glasgow is intended to deliver quantum technologies to improve resilience in areas like navigation and timing systems for use in national security and critical national infrastructure. This will also include improving positioning systems on aircraft to overcome GPS jamming – rife in the Baltics recently around Kaliningrad – and in submarines to enable them to operate for months without surfacing to reconnect with satellites for navigation.