The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab, established with the support of AWS, is the first of its kind initiative in the world.

The MeitY Quantum Computing Applications Lab will provide quantum computing as a service to government ministries and departments, researchers, scientists, academia, and developers to enable advances in areas such as manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and aerospace engineering.

AWS is expected to provide hosting services with technical and programmatic support. Quantum computing is an emerging field that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to build powerful tools to process information. It has the potential to solve computational problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, and lead to new breakthroughs that can transform chemical engineering, material science, drug discovery, financial portfolio optimisation, machine learning, and much more.

MeitY Principal Secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney noted that quantum computing is at a very nascent stage in the country, and that it is important to make access to quantum computing available for researchers, young companies as well as small and medium businesses.

"This not only enables them to taste what quantum computing could do to their various kinds of use cases and applications, but to actually build solutions around that...making this kind of a lab available at this stage gives us a good start with the infrastructure not just being available, but also accessible in a very simplified way," he stated.

Max Peterson, Vice President (International Sales, Worldwide Public Sector) at AWS Inc said the lab will identify quantum computing problem statements for experimentation from among central and state governments, research institutions, and academia.