India has officially set out on its pursuit of a technology that scientists worldwide hail as the possible solution to some of the most complex problems, from global warming and hunger, to epidemics.This has begun with India’s QuEST(Quantum Computer) –Quantum-Enabled Science & Technology (QuEST) programme

Over the next three years, India will lay the groundwork and set up initial infrastructure for research in the field of quantum computers, extremely powerful systems that, it is believed, will solve in hours or days the problems conventional computers could struggle with for billions of years.

This will be the first phase of a larger push in the field over the next decade. A budget of Rs 80 crore has been set aside for this phase.

The stage for this was at the very first mission meeting of the Department of Science & Technology’s (DST’s) Rs 80 crore Quantum-Enabled Science & Technology (QuEST) programme, held at International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT)-Hyderabad.

The event was attended by nearly 50 delegates, most of them academics working in the area of quantum physics. Top science representatives of the government’s different research branches, including principal scientific adviser (PSA) to the government K. VijayRaghavan, ISRO chairman K. Sivan, and NITI Aayog member and former defence secretary Vijay Kumar Saraswat.