The Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan inaugurated IIT Madras' Centre for Quantum Information, Communication and Computing (MCQuICC) at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras today, September 19. In addition to the new centre, the minister has also launched the strategic plan of the institute for 2021-27. Online degrees, internationalisation and hybrid learning are some of the strategic plans.
While presenting the institute's strategic plan, IIT Madras Director V Kamakoti said that 75 crores per annum will be spent on infrastructure development and all buildings will be developed as per international standards. Two new centres every year will be launched at the Discovery Campus, the Director added.
Sharing the plan for 2021-27, the Director further said that the course programmes at the institute will be hybrid. The university plans to impart three online degrees and 20 multidisciplinary pivot options. The institute seeks to internationalise its programmes and as part of it 50 per cent of PhD students will spend at least three months abroad.
MCQuICC will focus on advancing core algorithms in research areas like Quantum Machine Learning, Quantum Optimization, and applications research in finance. The basic research will include Quantum information, Quantum Error correction, Algorithms, Architecture and Communication protocols. The IIT Madras in collaboration with IBM Research India will lead the progress of research in the application of quantum computing to domains relevant to India. The applied research will be based on how Quantum computing will help a ‎variety of industries and disciplines, including finance, energy, chemistry, materials science, Quantum simulations and Q machine learning. IIT Madras is the first Indian institute to join the IBM Quantum Network to advance quantum computing skills development and research in the country.
The focus area of the programme in Quantum networks will be Quantum key distribution, QRNGs, sources, network topologies, secret sharing. The focus area in case of Quantum computing will be Quantum Algorithims, Ising machines, cluster states and Tomography. While the Quantum Information will include Quantum error correction, Quantum machine learning and blind Quantum computing. To be a part of IIT Madras' MCQuICC, candidates should possess a postgraduate degree in MTech, MS, PhD or have pursued certificate courses like NPTEL, WebEnabled and CEP.