Chennai, Aug 26 (Reporter) The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is hosting the 16th edition of the International Conference on Quantum Communication, Measurement and Computing (QCMC 2024) from Monday The conference would be held for five days till August 30 and the very first one to be held in India. The Center For Quantum Information, Communication And Computing (CQuICC), a Centre of Excellence at IIT Madras, is coordinating the event. It is being held at the IIT Madras Research Park. Established in 1990, the QCMC is one of the most prestigious global forums for scientists and engineers in the interdisciplinary field of quantum information science and technology. It brings together experts from across the world to share advancements in quantum computing, quantum communication, quantum cryptography, and quantum sensing. The conference is sponsored by IIT Madras, Mphasis F1 Foundation and KLA. Delivering an address on ‘India’s National Quantum Mission’ during the inaugural session today, Dr. Ajai Chowdhury, Chairman, Mission Governing Board, National Quantum Mission, said, “It is great that IIT Madras managed to get the conference to India. Tremendous amount of work is already going on in India, especially in IIT Madras where a lot of work was underway. As a plan that was done by DST, where the National Quantum Mission is housed, we started working on many projects including of the Ministry of Electronics and IT and other Ministries. As we started to work on the National Quantum Mission, we started to look how many scientists and PIs are working in this field and found that India had around 600 scientists and 40 to 50 start-ups as well in Quantum Technology.” “We are clearly working on making sure that all parts of quantum technologies are taken care off. After the National Quantum Mission launch, we had an overwhelming response with close to 385 proposals received to set up thematic parks and other areas of the quantum technologies. At this moment, we have finalized where we want to go and soon, the National Quantum Mission will be making the announcements. The plan is to set up four independent Section 08 Companies in which the thematic parks will be housed - Computing, Communications, Sensing and Materials", he said. "The whole objective is that we bring together all researchers under on thematic hub. addition, we felt that we must involve start-ups in a big way. We wrote to about 40-odd start-ups and we met about 14 start-ups to understand where we are”, he said, according to an IIT-M release Dr. Ajai Chowdhury said “Within the next three months, we will be handing grants to 10 to 15 good start-ups. We want to see them grow, scale and go global. There have been some good products developed, especially in cryptography. We have also been working to get various software companies to get involved, and encourage them to invest in quantum. Again, we were surprised to see that some were already working in quantum. We want them to actually take products from India that have already been developed and take them globally because they have the reach required for it.” IIT Madras has positioned itself as a leader in quantum research through the establishment of the Center for Quantum Information, Communication, and Computing (CQuICC). The Institute is advancing India’s quantum frontier with cutting-edge research in quantum cryptography, quantum sensing, quantum information theory and quantum networks. The institution also plays a crucial role in India’s National Quantum Mission, contributing to the development of home-grown quantum technologies...////...