The African Continent Works to Grow its Stake in Quantum Computing

(UniversityWorldNews) The cutting-edge IT field of quantum computing is developing across Africa, with South Africa considered the hub, in part through an IBM centre in Johannesburg that enables academics throughout the continent to freely access its quantum computer network, based in the United States, through the cloud.
“South Africa is a few steps ahead in the advancement of quantum computing and quantum technologies in general,” said Mark Tame, professor in photonics at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape.
South Africa’s University of KwaZulu-Natal has also been working on quantum computing for more than a decade, gradually building up a community around the field.
The IBM Research Laboratory in Johannesburg offers African researchers the potential to harness such computing power. It was established in 2015, part of a 10-year investment programme through the South African government’s Department of Trade and Industry.
It is a portal to the IBM Quantum Experience, a cloud-based quantum computing platform accessible to other African universities that are part of the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), which involves 16 of the continent’s leading universities (in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda and South Africa).