IIT Bombay joins Chicago Quantum Exchange, forms new collaborative science and technology partnership with University of Chicago

Today the governments of India and the United States announced that the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay) joined the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE), headquartered at the University of Chicago, as an international partner. Complementing this is a new collaborative science and technology partnership between the University of Chicago and IIT Bombay, which will promote cooperation in fields such as quantum information science, climate and energy, advanced microelectronics, artificial intelligence and data science.

The quantum announcement was highlighted during a meeting of Hon'ble U.S. President Joe Biden and Hon'ble Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi at the G20 summit in New Delhi, India. It reaffirms the goals of the U.S.-India initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), "to elevate and expand our strategic technology partnership and defense industrial cooperation between the governments, businesses, and academic institutions of our two countries."

IIT Bombay Director, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhuri, said, "With a strong bond being built between India and US academia, as evident from the joint declaration by the top leaderships in both the countries, it is a great opportunity for IIT Bombay to work with the University of Chicago on some of the most critical and evolving technologies our nations are facing today. Our collective strength will help bring forth impactful breakthrough innovations benefiting the society."

A key component of the partnership is that IIT Bombay has joined CQE as one of only five worldwide academic partners. CQE, an intellectual hub for advancing the science and engineering of quantum information, is based at the University of Chicago and is anchored by the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Northwestern University. This follows recent University of Chicago quantum-focused announcements in Japan, the first at the G7 regarding a partnership between the University of Chicago, the University of Tokyo, IBM and Google to build the world's first quantum supercomputer, and the second with Tohoku University to accelerate quantum research. IIT Bombay anchors the Quantum Information Computing Science & Technology (QuICST ) Hub, one of the leading centers for quantum research in India.

"Strong global partnerships provide the expertise and resources to advance breakthrough innovation and are an essential part of developing a robust quantum ecosystem. We are very excited to be engaged with IIT Bombay in such a significant way," said David Awschalom, Director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, and senior scientist at Argonne.

In addition to quantum, UChicago and IIT Bombay will collaborate and conduct joint research in fields such as climate, energy, advanced microelectronics, artificial intelligence and data science. In these areas there will be a host of joint research activities, joint conferences, exchanges of information as well as faculty and scholar visits. For joint conferences and researchers visiting India, the University of Chicago's Delhi Center, which will celebrate its 10th. anniversary in 2024, will be a resource for these and similar collaborations.

"At the University of Chicago, our goal is to strengthen collaborations with our Indian counterparts in science, technology, and engineering, where the US and India are increasingly aligned in research and development. This partnership with IIT Bombay is an outstanding opportunity to build shared US-India scientific knowledge," said Supratik Guha, UChicago Delhi Center Faculty Director, Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and senior scientist and advisor to Argonne National Laboratory's Physical Sciences and Engineering Directorate.