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(Bloomberg) — The UK will spend more than £1 billion ($1.3 billion) on quantum computing research over the next four years, as governments boost investment into a technology that’s increasingly considered critical to national security.
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The government wants quantum computing firms to build prototype machines for evaluation, with an eye to delivering larger-scale computers for public sector, academic and commercial use over the next 10 years, the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology said in a statement on Tuesday.
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It will fund companies to develop uses for quantum computing in pharmaceuticals, financial services and energy, DSIT said. It will also back research into quantum navigation, an alternative to GPS that is less prone to jamming.
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The goal of quantum computing is to harness the unique qualities of subatomic particles — particularly their ability to exist in multiple states simultaneously — to solve complex problems much faster than classical machines. But harnessing those properties in a reliable way is immensely difficult, and a problem that academic researchers, startups and companies such as Google are trying to solve using different approaches.
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Early breakthroughs show the potential power of the technology. Google ran an algorithm on its Willow quantum chip in October that ran 13,000 times faster than the world’s fastest supercomputer. That followed Willow solving a problem in five minutes that would have taken a supercomputer 10 septillion years.
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The increased computational speed could mean faster breakthroughs in fields such as drug discovery, but also poses risks for national security, as quantum computers could break encryption more easily.
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Those potential uses mean a growing number of governments consider quantum computing as a strategic technology. The European Union is raising a €5 billion ($5.7 billion) fund to back startups in quantum and other critical areas such as robotics, on the condition companies remain headquartered within the bloc. Japan has also identified quantum computing among dozens of products and technologies as priority areas for investment.
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—With assistance from Mark Bergen.
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English (US)