State of quantum report’s rosy picture of progress

By Peter Roberts

The Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic has released its first State of Australian Quantum report which the government says reveals the depth and strength of our national quantum sector.

According to a statement, the government has committed billions in funding for quantum and broader critical technologies since the launch of the National Quantum Strategy eighteen months ago.

The big item in this spend is $470 million backing the construction of a quantum computer in Brisbane (pictured) which its builder, Californian start-up PsiQuantum says will be the world’s first useful quantum computer.

Apart from that big ticket item the government said this significant investment has been backed in by private capital, with over $179 million invested in Australian quantum companies over the same time period.

$10 million in private capital a month is not a big figure, but it does belie a vigorous private company scene that has grown up not just in 18 months, but in decades which began with governments of both persuasions investing in quantum research, especially in universities in Sydney.

A number of genuine scientific firsts came from this process and created the skills and institutions which are behind what appear to be highly prospective hardware and software companies such as Silicon Quantum Computing and Q-CTRL.

The quantum report says that the quantum industry is made up of 38 domestic and international firms, and 26 Australian research organisations, working in quantum sensing, communication and computing.

Just how a foreign owned for-profit start-up fits into this carefully constructed research and innovation ecosystem is not entirely obvious.

The release of the report coincides also with the announcement of recipients for Round 1 of the $36 million Critical Technologies Challenge Program (CTCP) which will accelerate commercialisation for quantum technologies:

• $5.2 million in funding has been awarded to 14 consortia for feasibility projects that will tackle challenges as diverse as:
• Making a high-speed optical scanner for diabetes assessment (SA, $495,026)
• Using quantum computing for remote community energy systems with renewable energy sources (SA, $159,666)
• Developing resilient communications and navigation of autonomous systems without GPS (QLD & NSW, $498,674)
• Creating a new quantum optical sensor which will enable selective mining of rare-earth elements in clay deposits (NSW & SA, $490,936)
• And developing diagnostic technology to detect the ‘Invisible Melanoma’ (Qld, $415,763).

These investments sit alongside the National Reconstruction Fund and Industry Growth Program, with Husic hinting this week that the NRF was on the cusp of announcing its first investments.

It is unlikely whether any of these initiatives will figure largely in the upcoming federal election, and only time will tell whether they really change the dial and add up to a future made in Australia.

After all, spending though measured in billions is dwarfed by that overseas and even in Australia by our $700 billion federal budget and $1.8 trillion economy.

Further reading:
Husic: NRF “on the cusp of announcing the first investments”
Australia has a National Quantum Strategy. What does that mean?

Picture: PsiQuantum/building a fault-tolerant quantum computer will be able to solve commercially useful problems across industries built upon chemistry, math, and physics