The recent pandemic has proved again that India has an excellent ability in providing innovative solutions to address global urgencies - be it healthcare, food or other sectors. India is now aiming to achieve market leadership by taking a quantum leap in shaping the future digital India. We are one of the largest Information Technology consumers and service providers with elite IT workforce and have also proved to the world our strengths in this sector with high quality, price performance, use of state-of-the-art technologies and capabilities in handling and delivering large projects successfully.Now, it’s time for India to achieve global leadership in deep technologies such as Quantum Technologies to ensure that India provides digital solutions for future demands, addressing issues in fintech, automotive, banking and security, defence, agriculture etc.Quantum Technologies – the potential technologies of the future – are an outcome of progression of the first quantum revolution into the second quantum revolution – beginning with the birth of Broglie’s wave-particle duality breakthrough.  The concepts of Quantum Mechanics such as the Superposition and Entanglementhave laid the foundations of Quantum Technologies. India is preparing itself to be quantum ready – be it an indigenous quantum computer development or skilled workforce or an infrastructure needed to adopt quantum technologies including the standards required for various quantum systems.

Techgiants like Google, IBM andHoneywell have made humongous investments in fostering the Quantum Technologies and their commercialization.Today, in the world of Supercomputers or High-Performance Computing and Cloud Computing India is preparing itself to venture into a world of Quantum Computing that brings down the time complexity of solving complex problems to polynomial time as against the exponential timetaken by the current non-quantum resources. Quantum Information and Computing is one of the verticals of the much broader Quantum Technologies that India is preparing its capabilities in.The vertical covers the development of the hardware of a quantum computer based on the quantum mechanical properties, for instance, of neutral atoms or ions and their use as information bits or qubits. The vertical also encompasses the development of robust algorithms tosolve problems by performing gate operations on quantum machines for which programming tools such as Qiskit, PennyLane, Cirq, Q# (Q-Sharp) are employed. The quantum computing is currently termed to be in a state called as the Noisy Intermediate-scale Quantum (NISQ) era as the advanced quantum processors as of date of about 100 qubits are still not fault-tolerant to perform gate operations.The processors are prone to environmental noises and thus fully error-corrected qubits are limited only. The efficiency of quantum computers or the intermediate-scale is therefore oftenassessed by industry by ‘Quantum Volume’ which is based on the number of qubits and the gate fidelity.

Quantum Sensing and Metrology is another vertical of Quantum Technologies that is gaining importance in Indian quantum context due to the field deployable systems having reached the market. Sensors based on quantum phenomenon that are sensitive, beyond limits of classical sensors, to measuring absolute acceleration due to gravity, electric fields or weak magnetic fields are being developed that will be employed in very useful applications such as underground water or mineral mapping and healthcare. The need for precision timing in satellite communication or trading has motivated the area of quantum metrological devices that offers immense accuracy in time measurements and is leading to development of atomic clocks and GPS free navigational devices based on quantum rotation and acceleration measurements.

Quantum Communications is another important vertical under Quantum Technologies thatnational institutes and agencies are focusing upon. It provides quantum secure communications over fibre or in free space and also covers secure key distribution that forms the core of any security system – such as the foundations of any banking, data security and defence communication systems. Multi-node quantum networks are being established in the nation for large area secure communications based on trusted quantum repeaters.

India has capabilities in materials that are employed in development of Quantum Technologies and the area is heading towards advanced research stages and devices are being fabricated based on such materials. Quantum Materials covers the design and synthesis of materials such as superconductors, semiconductors, 2D materials and topological materials. The vertical also includes fabrication of quantum devices for development of qubits for quantum computing applications, single photon sources or detectors and entangled photon sources for quantum communications, sensing and metrological applications. The area is resource- and infrastructure-intense but is evolving at a fast pace.

With nations such as China, UK, Germany, France and USA allocating and spending huge budgets in the national quantum missions, India has taken baby-steps in launching the quantum missions. India started this journeyin 2018 withthe launch of Quantum Enabled Science and Technology (QuEST) program that funded 51 national quantum labs with a budget of 250 Cr and developed infrastructure required to progress with developments in Quantum Technologies. It also helped the government identify the national quantum labs and experts and provided a national umbrella and an ecosystem for them to work together for the nation.The program boosted the research in quantum areas and enhanced the interaction within the quantum ecosystem. Following the QuEST program, India established a full-fledged national quantum hub – the I-HUB Quantum Technology Foundation or I-HUB QTF in Pune in 2020under the dedicated National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS) with a budget of 170 Cr dedicated to development of Quantum Technologies. This is a breakthrough mission that hasgeared up the quantum technology development. The vision of the I-HUB QTF is to develop quantum technologies and products of socio-economic values that have grass-roots level impact. In both, the QuESTprogram and the NM-ICPS mission, the quantum effects are harnessed for development of quantum sensors, quantum computers, subsystems for quantum communications using platforms that use photons, isolated atoms and ions, artificial 'atoms', electronics spins, atomic defects in solid matrices and ensemble of atoms/molecules in liquid state. The national quantum hub,I-HUB QTF has laid a foundation for quantum technology and product development, quantum skilling, promotion of innovation and entrepreneurship via support of quantum-based startups and also international collaborations in quantum technologies. Enabling technologies are also being encouraged at the hub to promote indigenization such as indigenization of key technology enablers - materials, devices, instrumentation and control systems, algorithms and software required for Quantum Technologies. The I-HUB QTF promotes quantum technology development through Hub-Spoke-Spike model by funding in-house core projects at the hub, projects in collaboration with other institutes and projects at other institutes respectively.The flagship projects of the hub include development of ion-trap based quantum computer and Gravity sensor or Gravimeter. The hub offers Chanakya Fellowships in Quantum Technologies at undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral levels to skill the young generation in the area. The hub is on its way to launching short-term certificate programs in Quantum Technologies. The hub also runs a quantum incubator that incubates and funds startups aspiring to work in Quantum Technologies. The hub has been pioneering in showcasing and demonstrating Quantum Technologies at government science and technology conclaves in the recent time. The I-HUB QTF has also initiated programs with international quantum groups.

The core fact about Quantum Technologies is that they are in their nascent stages due to the challenges in terms of requirement of several hardware and technology platforms for development of technologies. Therefore, a nation needs to be ready for the revolution that these technologies shall bring along. With the launch of National Quantum Mission (NQM) with a budget of 6000 Cr dedicated to development of Quantum Technologies at a much larger scale thanthe NM-ICPS mission with a plan to establish thematic hubs, India is now on a global quantum map. The NQM will boost the efforts of QuESTProgram and NM-ICPS mission and is expected to be a dedicated mission towards delivering to the nation a robust quantum computer to enableuse-case development, advanced field deployable quantum sensors and metrological devices, quantum secure communications and networks, and quantum devices - taking India a step closer towards achieving quantum readiness and hence leadership in the future.