China Central Committee Emphasizes the Development of Quantum Sciences & Technology

(GlobalTimes) After a group study session, the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee emphasized the importance and urgency of advancing the development of quantum science and technology. President Xi Jinping stressed the importance of strengthening strategic planning and systematic layout for the development of quantum science and technology at the session held on Friday.
Xi emphasized the need to strengthen top-level design and forward-looking layout of the area, improve the policy support systems, and speed up breakthroughs in basic research.
Quantum information science has become a new area of world competition. In the UK, metropolitan quantum networks have been built by the Quantum Communications Hub in Cambridge and Bristol, connected by a long-distance link via London. The EU has documentation to jointly develop high performance computing, including quantum computing, in the next decade. The US has a National Quantum Initiative involving 16 different federal agencies and offices and its technology giants are taking lead in quantum computing.
Guo Guoping, a key member of the research and development (R&D) team and a professor at the Hefei-based University of Science and Technology of China, told the Global Times that China takes a lead in quantum communication but lags three to five years behind in quantum computing. The gap is not only in scientific research, but also in simulation and real application of quantum computing, Guo said. US companies like Google, IBM and Microsoft are the industry giants while Chinese companies like Alibaba and Baidu are actively catching up.