Quantum supremacy chase: India in select country club

量子霸权争夺赛：印度跻身精英国家俱乐部

New Delhi: India has joined a select few countries that chase “Quantum Supremacy” with a Rs 8,000-crore national mission to crack into the next generation technology, which promises exponential ‘compute’ power and to rewrite the rules of present-day computing.

新德里：印度已跻身少数几个争夺“量子霸权”的国家行列，肩负着800亿卢比的国家使命，进军新一代技术。新一代技术有望带来指数级的“计算”能力，并改写当今计算的规则。

The Department of Science and Technology (DST), which is drafting the contours of the mission to be detailed in a month, is looking to build a homegrown 50 Qubit ‘Quantum Computer’ in 4-5 years as part of the mission, which will also include building solutions for quantum communications, storage and encryption, a government official told ET.

一位政府官员告诉《经济时报》，科学技术部（DST）正在起草该任务的框架，将在一个月内制订出细节，作为该任务的组成部分，科技部希望在4-5年内建造一台国产的50位“量子计算机”，其中还将包括为量子通信、存储和加密构建解决方案。

Once proven, the disruptive technology — still under works at labs in the United States, Russia, and India — could be used to hack into any cyber security system in a matter of seconds, making it a strategic need for countries. It could also be applied to previously unsolved problems and significantly reduce the time taken to provide solutions.

这项颠覆性的技术目前在美国、俄罗斯、和印度的实验室里仍处于研究阶段，一旦被证实，可在几秒钟内侵入任何网络安全系统，这使其成为各国的战略需求。它还可以应用于以前未解决的问题，并大大减少提供解决方案所需的时间。

“Any country which has quantum technology can secure their systems and decode the most secured networks elsewhere,” KR Murali Mohan, head of Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems at DST, which is implementing the mission told ET.

“任何拥有量子技术的国家都可以保护他们的系统，并解码其他一切最安全的网络，”DST跨学科网络物理系统负责人穆拉利莫汉告诉《经济时报》。

A typical computer stores information in bits—either as a 0 or 1— but quantum computers can store information in two quantum bits (or qubits) as both a 0 and a 1 at the same time, that is as 11 or 01, which means that the computational power of a system can multiply exponentially.

标准的计算机将信息以二进制位—0或1—的形式进行存储，但量子计算机可以同时以两个量子位(量子比特)0和1的形式存储信息，即11或01，这意味着系统的计算能力可以得到成倍增长。

For companies and countries that can crack it, it is a wealth of monetary benefits. “Whoever does it first is expected to have a clear monopoly, that’s why so many investments are being made worldwide on this technology,” Mohan said.

对于能够破解它的公司和国家来说，这将带来巨大的金钱收益。莫汉说:“谁第一个取得成功，都将占据显而易见的垄断地位，这就是为什么全世界都在这项技术上进行大额投资的原因。”

DST has asked for Rs 8,000 crore funding over five years, since the hardware and software required for Quantum Research is expensive and researchers have to operate in sub-zero temperatures.

由于量子研究所需的硬件和软件非常昂贵，而且研究人员必须在零下的温度下工作，DST已经在未来5年内申请了800亿卢比的资金。

India is not only betting on quantum technology for strategic purposes, but also to focus on applications in areas such as medical, agriculture, space and aerospace engineering. For instance, it can reduce the time-tomarket of drug discovery to just two days from the current 10 years, run tests on various demographic and gene profiles, run complex aircraft simulations within a matter of minutes. The mission is planned in such a way that research and development that is a part of it will be fed into startups, which can spin off products in the area of quantum computing and take them to market quickly.

印度不仅将量子技术用于战略目的，还将把重点放在医疗、农业、太空和航天工程等领域的应用上。例如，它可以将药物发现的上市时间从目前的10年缩短至2天，对各种人口统计学和基因图谱进行测试，在几分钟内进行复杂的航空器模拟。这项任务中研究和开发的一部分将被注入初创公司，这些公司可以分拆量子计算领域的产品，并将它们迅速推向市场。

“India is the third largest when it comes to publishing papers, but it doesn’t translate into creating actual products, reducing the gap between research and product development can help,” said Mohan.

莫汉说:“印度在论文发表数量方面排名第三，但这并未转化为真正的产品，缩小研究和产品开发之间的差距会有所帮助。”

Once quantum technology goes mainstream, the most secure of encryptions generated using today’s crypto algorithms could be broken into within a matter of seconds – something governments worldwide are scared about. “Quantum changes computing in the most fundamental way since it provides exponentially more compute power. But it is also probabilistic in nature, so the chances of error are high compared to the determinate nature of today’s computing,” said Rahul Matthan, cofounder of law firm Trilegal.

一旦量子技术成为主流，即便使用当今加密算法生成的最安全的加密术也可能在几秒钟内被破解—这正是世界各国政府都担心的事情。“量子以最基本的方式改变了计算，因为它能提供指数级的计算能力。但它在本质上也是概率性的，因此与今天的计算的确定性相比，出错的几率很高。

“Everyone in the world is still at the very basic stage of understanding how to build quantum computers, so if India can invest in R&D, we have as much of a chance as anyone to make a fundamental breakthrough,” he added.

他补充说:“全球各国都还处于摸索如何制造量子计算机的非常基础的阶段，所以如果印度能够投资研发，我们就有和其他人一样多的机会取得根本性突破。”

 以下是《印度经济时报》读者评论：

译文来源：三泰虎           译者：Joyceliu

Pandey US

R&D is the base of country's devolopment. All the best . go ahead. At least Modi government has sanctioned the project and allotted the fund which was not possible in Congress or collision era.

研发是国家发展的基础。愿一切顺利！加油。至少莫迪政府已经批准了这个项目，资金也到位了，这在国大党或冲突时代是不可能的。

Mickky

This is as important as reaching mars, infect more, all the best to all great scientist who works on it, if India can crack it, no one can stop India to be A 30 TRILLION ECONOMY..

这和登陆火星的任务一样重要，影响更大，所有最伟大的科学家都在研究它，如果印度能破解它，就没有人能阻挡印度成为30万亿的经济体了。

Raj

India GOVT institutions certainly has achieved amazing result irrespective of corrupt bureaucracy (inside & outside these firms). Praying & believing in that extraordinary spirit for similar "magic" to happen in Quantum area. GOD bless the humanity :-) we built spacecraft to reach another planet but cant find bug in banking which leaks billions every day

尽管有腐败的官僚机构，印度政府机构还是取得了惊人的成果。祈祷并相信这种非凡的精神能在量子领域发生相同的“魔法”。神保佑人类。我们建造了宇宙飞船到达另一个星球，但却找不到每天泄漏数十亿美元的银行漏洞。

ARA

highly confusing! As we all know, there are two BASIC-components viz hardware and software. You have mentioned about storage of two digits in-place of one ( i.e. either 00, 01, 10,11 against current 0 or 1, = correct?) This deals with hardware mainly. All other descriptions upon compressing an R & D from 10 years to two etc. are to be achieved thru well-written soft-wares! We have already parallel operations and parallel computing. Storage devices have graduated from earlier magnetic-based materials to digital-mode, now. It is unclear whether speed is achieved only due to storage of a double- digit or any accompanying newer processors. (AND as extension, newer software that convert all into very high-speed computational outputs) From whatever I read, current semi-conductor devices face constraints - due to the technological-needs to accommodate very large ACTIVE and PASSIVE elements. ( and resultant problems of over-heating etc) Please make it all clear first. HOW a matching very high speed processor ( s ) that will make use of the said, very high capacity storages will be built?- WHEN? -

非常困惑！我们都知道，有两个基本组件：硬件和软件。您提到过在一个数字的位置存储两个数字(即针对当前0或1的00、01、10、11，对吗?)这主要跟硬件有关。存储设备已经从早期的磁性材料发展到现在的数字模式。目前还不清楚，是否只有存储两位数的数据才能达到这种速度，或者只有新处理器才可以。我之前看过文章，当前的半导体设备面临着一些限制—由于技术的原因—需要容纳非常大的有源和无源元件。(由此会产生过热等问题)如何建造与之匹配的高速处理器来利用所述的高容量存储器？什么时候能实现？

Anirban

There's so much incorrect scientific information in this article. Consult a quantum scientist next time please.

这篇文章里有太多不正确的科学信息。请先咨询量子科学家。

May

Quantum computing requires different quotient hope DST have it.

量子计算需要不同的商，希望DST有。

H K Doshi

Our scientistCommunity deserve clap. Congrats.

我们的科学家群体值得鼓掌。恭喜。

Rahul

First Child is born, then crawl, then try to walk, then walk, then kid run, then kid learn and grow, then kid do experiment, then kid invent things, WHAT this article saying about govt is Govt want to jump without learning and inventing any thing.

第一个孩子出生，然后会爬了，蹒跚学步，然后会走了，接着会跑了，然后学习、成长，做实验、发明东西，这篇关于政府的文章说的是政府想要在没有学习和发明之前就直接跳。

Rahul

MODIVIRUS: is a daydream virus which affect human thinking and time calculation

莫迪病毒：是一种影响人类思维和时间计算的白日梦病毒。

 外文链接：https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tech/internet/quantum-supremacy-chase-india-in-select-country-club/articleshow/74055777.cms