A University of the Witwatersrand- (Wits-) led consortium has been awarded R54-million in funding by the Department of Science and Innovation to set up a national quantum technologies initiative.
This funding will be disbursed between now and March 2025 and will be a first tranche of funding for the project, designated the South African Quantum Technologies Initiative (SA QuTI).
The other universities involved in SA QuTI are the University of Zululand, Stellenbosch University, the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Quantum nodes will be established at each of these, as well as at Wits. In due course, further such nodes will also be created. Wits will manage SA QuTI and administer and distribute the assigned funds.
“We managed to convince government that quantum research is too important to leave to a small research group, and that they should invest in a national programme,” said Wits School of Physics professor and initiative proposal writer Andrew Forbes.
Quantum technologies are an emerging field of science and engineering which seek to exploit the peculiar nature of quantum mechanics, which explains the behaviour of subatomic particles.