FST JOURNAL

Summary:

• The quantum programme has been going for about 10 years and has great partnerships across the people that make it up
• The quantum programme is the first in Europe, and third globally for the quality of research
• The quantum strategy (which supersedes the programme) is focused on several pillars including the continuation of world leading research, scaling up and adoption.

The Quantum programme has been going for about 10 years now. It comes to a close this year, and over that period, we have spent about a billion across various activities, from funding the quantum hubs, which bring together industry and academia around technology development, to Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) activities. We also have the Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics Programme and activities across research innovation. As part of Innovate UK’s Challenge Programme, we have funded about 180 companies and provided around 180 million of funding for projects mentioned in the previous article. Alongside this, we have key bits of infrastructure, such as the National Quantum Computing Centre, which is due to open this year. This will really help to scale quantum computing and explore adoption and readiness within the programme. The quantum programme has been going now for a long time and has great partnerships across the people that make it up, which includes Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL),the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), the MoD (Ministry of Defence) and GCHQ.

 The quantum strategy and next steps

The programme has had great successes so far, including being first in Europe and third globally for the quality of research. We are also second in the world for number of quantum companies, and second in attracting private investment into the country. We are also building on really broad industrial and academic capabilities across computing, communication, sensing, time, imaging, and have a very vibrant supply chain in the UK. We knew that the programme was coming to an end in 2024, so towards the end of 2022, we started to plan for a new programme in government and across the partners. We really started thinking about what fits around the programme, recognising global competition and growth that we were witnessing, and the need, really to maintain that global position that we have in the UK.

The quantum strategy is focused on a number of pillars. It builds on the success of the programme but looks to fill gaps around commercialisation and scaling. The first pillar is to continue to fund world leading science and develop the skill set. The second one is around addressing these scale-up challenges and helping businesses to grow. The third one is around adoption and really creating that pull and focus on societal benefits, and then the last pillar really is on supporting innovation and the ethical use of technologies through international regulatory frameworks.

 Potential applications

There are many potential applications for quantum technologies. They aren't just one technology. They are a suite of technologies that have many benefits and opportunities, and that in itself, represents a challenge. What we try to focus on in government is making sure that we have clear trajectories towards areas of high impact, and we did that through the development of five quantum missions. Towards the end of 2023, we published these missions which were developed in collaboration with the community. They focus on key technological milestones, such as achieving scale in quantum computing or networked

systems in the UK, as well as key application areas for sensing. We are also looking at the value that quantum can bring to this government's missions. Be that economic growth (for example), where we think that quantum will play a really important role in achieving the outcomes in the growth mission. This government has signaled that it sees the importance of quantum and will continue to support it moving forwards. We will see what happens with this over the coming months. Quantum also has value for the other government missions around an NHS ‘Fit for the Future’, ‘taking back our streets’ and making Britain a clean energy superpower.

 We have already committed to funding five new hubs that fit very well with the quantum missions, two of which are in Scotland. We have the quantum networks Hub and one on position, navigation timing (PNT_ led out of Edinburgh and Glasgow respectively. We also have sensing, imaging and timing led out of Birmingham, sensing for health led out of London, and quantum computing led out of Oxford. As with the last set of hubs, these will be partnerships, delivering a program of work across a number of leading academic institutions across the UK. We've also established five new doctoral training centers (DCTs) and run competitions around networking and PNT, as well as European projects and the National Quantum Computing Centre, which is due to open shortly.

 As you can imagine, we are in the midst of a spending review, where government will need to balance many priorities, so this is a big challenge that we are currently trying to navigate. This will look at what does one year (25/26) versus multiyear spending activity (26/27 onwards) look like for quantum alongside all other activities? We are also in the middle of thinking about the next steps for the Infrastructure Review. The Academy of Engineering produced a very helpful report, which is really the start of the conversation, and we will be doing community engagement to better understand the crossover of those requirements for infrastructure across quantum but also how it marries to the requirements for semiconductor, telecoms, AI or other critical technologies. We are also due to receive the Skills Task Forces report in the near future, which has been over a year's worth of work with a lot of people within the community who have started to really get to grips with the skills needs beyond PhD.