The UK government has announced more than £100m in funding for the development of five new quantum technology research hubs across England and Scotland.
The hubs will be based in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Oxford and London, and will each specialise in a specific area.
Science Secretary Peter Kyle said that there was a “huge opportunity” for British science and research, which could result in the UK becoming “global leaders” in emerging quantum technologies.
The hubs will be delivered by the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), with a total investment of £106m from EPSRC and other partners.
EPSRC executive chair Professor Charlotte Deane said that quantum tech would provide “unparalleled power and capacity” with “revolutionary” potential in everything “from healthcare to infrastructure and computing”.
The government said that the technologies emerging from research at the hubs would directly improve people’s lives in a number of different areas, including health and national security.
The new hubs will be led by leading universities working closely with commercial partners to translate research into real-world applications.
Each quantum hub will pursue its own specialty
The quantum technology hubs will be:
- UK Quantum Biomedical Sensing Research Hub (University College London and University of Cambridge)
- UK Quantum Technology Hub in Sensing, Imaging and Timing (University of Birmingham)
- Integrated Quantum Networks Quantum Technology Hub (Heriot-Watt University)
- Hub for Quantum Computing via Integrated and Interconnected Implementations (University of Oxford)
- The UK Hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation and Timing (University of Glasgow)
Each will pursue its own research goals using quantum techniques in a range of different applications.
The London-based Biomedical Sensing hub, for example, will explore the use of quantum sensors for ultra-sensitive disease diagnosis.
This could potentially lead to the development of new rapid blood tests and biomedical scanners providing earlier detection and treatment of diseases including cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
Birmingham’s Sensing, Imaging and Timing hub could also work on cancer diagnostics, as well as brain scanners for dementia and technologies involved in security and infrastructure monitoring.
The Integrated Quantum Networks hub in Edinburgh will aim to develop a UK-wide ‘quantum internet’, while the Integrated and Interconnected Implementations hub at Oxford will work on quantum computer capabilities.
The hub for Quantum Enabled Position, Navigation and Timing, located in Glasgow, will work on navigation systems that could be used in autonomous vehicles.
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