Researchers awarded an EPSRC grant to bring together expertise in quantum computing & ICT

A new collaborative project
Researchers with expertise in quantum computing and communication technologies at Imperial College London and University College London (UCL) have been awarded this fund for collaborating and advancing hybrid quantum computing and quantum internet. 

The funding recognises UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering as a global partner in the International Quantum and Communications community and will support joint research at Imperial and UCL, with plans to engage the UK and international researchers in the fields. The UCL team will be led by Dr Georgios Zervas. 

Investigators will include Professor Kin Leung, Professor Myungshik Kim, Professor Ian Walmsley FRS, Dr Georgios Zervas, Dr Mario Berta, Dr Jack Jacquier and Dr Sylvain Laizet. This team will also inform and interact with other researchers of the quantum community through networking activities.

In the first year of the work, researchers will need to co-create a research programme to develop distributed and hybrid quantum computing that supports practical applications. 

As Dr Georgios Zervas, UCL, states: 

“Following the Moore's Law slow down there has been significant effort to develop heterogenous cloud data centre systems formed of general purpose and custom processing units to best serve diverse set of applications in an energy-efficient manner. This project will explore ways to incorporate quantum computing units alongside classical computing in cloud data centres by bringing together a broad range of experts.

Commenting on the grant, Professor Kin Leung of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Department of Computing, Imperial College London, said "We are very honoured to be given this opportunity to utilise our expertise in quantum computing and communication networks to advance distributed quantum computing for supporting complex computation applications."

The project will also strengthen collaboration between academic research and industry partners in the Quantum field.

Kris Kaczmarek, Head of Product at OCRA computing, added: "We are delighted to see this investment into what we believe is a critical topic in quantum computing. The industry is waking up to the fact that networking quantum computers and combining them with classical resources is the fastest way to achieve any useful quantum advantage.

ORCA is already collaborating with some of the members in this consortium on building the quantum data center of the future, and we see this academic project as a perfect complement to that work."

Additional links
Visit the Institute of Communications and Connected Systems and Optical Networks Group (ONG) website to learn more about our research in this field. 

Visit the QuEST website to learn more about research into quantum technologies at Imperial College London.