IBM will provide over-the-cloud access to its quantum systems for Indian institutions to accelerate advanced training and research in quantum computing as it hopes to help build a “quantum-ready” workforce.

Faculty and students will be able to access IBM quantum systems, quantum learning resources, and quantum tools over the IBM Cloud for education and research purposes. The company hopes this will enable them to work with actual quantum computers and programmes using the Qiskit open-source framework.

“IBM is committed to growing a quantum-ready workforce and building an ecosystem to nurture the quantum community in India. With this engagement, we can take it a step further to scale up this ecosystem in India, for India and the world,” said Gargi Dasgupta, director of IBM Research India and CTO of IBM India/South Asia.

The institutions taking part are the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) – Pune, IISER – Thiruvananthapuram, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Jodhpur, IIT – Kanpur, IIT – Kharagpur, IIT – Madras, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai, and the University of Calcutta.

This partnership will also be part of the IBM Quantum Educators programme that helps faculty in the quantum field to connect with one another and provides them with educational resources.

Plus, IISER- Thiruvananthapuram, ISI-Kolkata, and IIT-Madras will host their own Quantum Computing Lab courses for students which will include lab sessions using IBM quantum systems.

Earlier this year, IBM offered the quantum industry’s first developer certification to help workforces become “quantum-ready”. Developers have to display their knowledge of Qiskit, the company’s open source quantum development kit, and answer 60 questions in the certification exam.

Using the knowledge of how to utilise Python and basic linear algebra, Qiskit allows users to programme quantum computing hardware. Since it was launched in 2017, thousands of users have developed applications and maintained and improved code, according to the company.

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