IBM Partners with U.K. on $300M Quantum Computing Research Initiative

(VentureBeat) The U.K. government and IBM this week announced a five-year £210 million ($297.5 million) artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum computing collaboration, in the hopes of making new discoveries and developing sustainable technologies in fields ranging from life sciences to manufacturing.
The program will hire 60 scientists, as well as bringing in interns and students to work under the auspices of IBM Research and the U.K.’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) at the Hartree Centre in Daresbury, Cheshire. The newly formed Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation (HNCDI) will “apply AI, high performance computing (HPC) and data analytics, quantum computing, and cloud technologies” to advance research in areas like materials development and environmental sustainability.
Artificial intelligence and quantum computing have the potential to revolutionize everything from the way we travel to the way we shop. They are exactly the kind of fields I want the U.K. to be leading in,” U.K. Science Minister Amanda Solloway said.
IBM chair and CEO Arvind Krishna said recently, “The COVID-19 pandemic has spawned one of the greatest races in the history of scientific discovery — one that demands unprecedented agility and speed.”
“At the same time, science is experiencing a change of its own — with high-performance computing, hybrid cloud, data, AI, and quantum computing being used in new ways to break through long-standing bottlenecks in scientific discovery. Our new collaboration with Cleveland Clinic will combine their world-renowned expertise in health care and life sciences with IBM’s next-generation technologies to make scientific discovery faster and the scope of that discovery larger than ever,” Krishna said.