Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar launched QSim – Quantum Computer Simulator Toolkit to facilitate research and hardware design for quantum computing in a cost effective manner

What is quantum computing?

• Quantum computing is an emerging field that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information. It has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, and lead to new breakthroughs that can transform chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, financial portfolio optimisation, machine learning and much more.

• Quantum technology is based on the principles of quantum mechanics developed in the early 20th century to describe nature at the scale of atoms and elementary particles. Using quantum superposition, a set of unbreakable codes or super-speedy information processing, quantum computers are able to mimic several classical computers working in parallel. 

• Quantum computers consist of quantum bits, or “qubits.” 

What is a qubit?

• Conventional computers use ‘bits’ - or ones and zeroes - as the basis of their calculations. In simple terms, these represent ‘yes’ and ‘no’, or ‘on’ and ‘off’. In combination, bits can be used to handle logical tasks.

• Quantum computing makes use of a property of sub-atomic particles in which they can simultaneously exist in different states. A quantum bit, or qubit, can thus be both one and zero at the same time. In the jargon, this is called superposition.

• The laws of quantum mechanics allow qubits to encode exponentially more information than bits. By manipulating information stored in these qubits, scientists can quickly produce high-quality solutions to difficult problems. Scientists have demonstrated these quantum speedups in several applications, including database searches. 

What is QSim?

• QSim is an outcome of the project “Design and Development of Quantum Computer Toolkit (Simulator, Workbench) and Capacity Building”. 

• This is one of the first initiatives in the country to address the common challenge of advancing the quantum computing research frontiers in India. 

• QSim has been jointly developed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and IIT Roorkee with the support of ministry of electronics and information technology (MeitY).

• The QSim platform will be accessible for students, researchers, startups and industries to help design better hardware for advanced research for quantum computing and stimulate them on supercomputers Param Shavak and Param Siddhi AI.

• QSim allows researchers to explore quantum algorithms under idealised conditions and help prepare experiments to run on actual quantum hardware. 

• QSim may help to attract students/researchers to the field of quantum technology and provides a platform to acquire the skills of ‘programming’ as well as ‘designing’ real quantum hardware.

• The government has provided an outlay of Rs 8,000 crore for developing quantum computing linked technologies under the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.

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