India has approved the National Quantum Mission in a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The project is expected to cost ₹6,000 crore.
The government today approved the National Quantum Mission to nurture and scale up scientific and industrial research and development in quantum technology.
The mission involves a cost to ₹ 6,003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31.
The National Quantum Mission (NQM), approved at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will accelerate quantum technology-led economic growth and nurture the ecosystem in the country.
“NQM is going to give India a quantum jump in this arena,” Science and Technology Minister Jitendra Singh told reporters here.
India will be the sixth country to have a dedicated quantum mission after the US, Austria, Finland, France and China.
“The new mission targets developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in eight years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology,” he said.
He said satellite-based secure quantum communications between ground stations over a range of 2000 km within India, long distance secure quantum communications with other countries, inter-city quantum key distribution over 2000 km as well as multi-node quantum network with quantum memories are also some of the deliverables of the mission.
According to the Ookla Speed Test Report for 2023 so far, Singapore, UAE, Chile, China, and Denmark have the fastest internet.