• A two-day-long India-Israel bilateral workshop was held in Delhi to boost collaboration between the two countries in the field of quantum technologies.

• The objective of the workshop was to deliberate on quantum technologies, evolve a joint quantum technology roadmap and plan for developing technologies by collaboration between both the countries. 

• The workshop was the next step of the Bilateral Innovation Agreement that was signed between India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Israel’s Directorate of Defence Research and Development (DDR&D) in November 2021.

Bilateral Innovation Agreement 

• The Bilateral Innovation Agreement was signed with an aim of promoting innovation in startups and MSMEs of both the countries.

• Under the agreement, startups and industry of both countries will work together to bring out next generation technologies and products in the areas such as drones, robotics, Artificial Intelligence, quantum technology, photonics, bio-sensing, brain-machine interface, energy storage, wearable devices, natural language processing, etc. 

• Products and technologies will be customised to meet unique requirements of both the countries. The development efforts will be jointly funded by DRDO and DDR&D, Israel. The technologies developed under BIA will be available to both countries for their domestic applications.

Quantum technology

• 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 technology is manifested through applications in secure communication, disaster management through better prediction, computing, simulation, chemistry, health care, cryptography, imaging among others. 

• Scientists have expanded quantum theory to understand biological phenomena such as smell, consciousness, enzyme catalysis, photosynthesis, avian navigation like that of the Robin, origin of life and effects on coronavirus. 

• Some stalwarts in this field include Satyendra Nath Bose, Sir Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman and  Meghnad Saha. India is currently at the forefront of tapping the second quantum revolution through massive investments in the field. 

• The range of quantum technologies is expected to be one of the major technology disruptions that will change the entire paradigm of computation, communication and encryption. 

• It is perceived that the countries who achieve an edge in this emerging field will have a greater advantage in garnering multifold economic growth and dominant leadership role.

• Union Budget 2020-21 proposed to spend Rs 8,000 crore on the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications (NMQTA) and Rs 3,660 crore for National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). 

Four domains of quantum technologies:

i) Quantum communication

ii) Quantum simulation

iii) Quantum computation

iv) Quantum sensing and metrology.

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