The government-backed UK programme that links universities, national labs, hubs and companies to turn quantum science into new products and industries.
The UK National Quantum Technologies Programme is the umbrella under which the country's quantum work is organised. It is not a single building or company but a joined-up effort that connects university research hubs, national laboratories, government bodies and businesses, so that discoveries about the strange behaviour of tiny particles can become useful things such as ultra-precise clocks and sensors, secure communications and powerful computers. Its main partners include the research councils, Innovate UK, the National Physical Laboratory and the National Quantum Computing Centre.
The programme does not publish a single mission statement on the pages we read, so we have not invented one. A guest blog by Roger McKinlay, Challenge Director for quantum at Innovate UK, describes the National Quantum Strategy of March 2023 as aiming to make the UK a place of world-leading quantum science and engineering, with growing knowledge and skills. The Commercialising Quantum Technologies Challenge, the part run by Innovate UK, aims to bring quantum products to market in areas such as cars, cybersecurity, defence, healthcare, infrastructure and telecommunications.
Its UK footprint is the whole country. The four original hubs were set up in 2014 at the universities of Birmingham, Glasgow, Oxford and York. Birmingham leads a hub in sensors and timing, Glasgow a hub in imaging, York a hub in quantum communications, and Oxford a hub in quantum computing. Other pieces include the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, the National Quantum Computing Centre at Harwell, and Centres for Doctoral Training that train new researchers. Innovate UK's 2018 pioneer projects included underground sensors for road and rail building, a small atomic clock from Teledyne e2v, encryption chips from Toshiba Research Europe and receivers from Arqit.
The culture is one of collaboration across sectors. Mr McKinlay's blog says the hubs and doctoral training centres supply a pipeline of talent, and that government's Office for Quantum, newly formed at the time, was commissioning a study of infrastructure. He also reported that companies formed around ten years earlier had benefited from Innovate UK grants. Those are the writer's own views, from a 2023 blog, so check for newer updates.
The roles in this world are spread across many organisations rather than in one place. They include researchers and engineers in university hubs, programme and challenge managers who run funding competitions, policy specialists in government, and staff at the start-ups and large companies that take quantum devices to market. For a student, the programme is a helpful map: if you can see which hub or lab interests you, you can follow its links to the universities and companies behind it.
Website: uknqt.ukri.org
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