Ed Husic sets out plan for Australia’s quantum leap in technology industry

The government has revealed a cracking list of quantum advisers ahead of a new national strategy to ensure Australia is in a winning position in the tech industry.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic: ‘Quantum technologies will transform communications, sensing and computing.’ Picture: Getty Images

The government has revealed a cracking list of quantum advisers ahead of a new national strategy to ensure Australia wins from an industry expected to underpin ­supercomputing and tech advances from agriculture to health.

On Wednesday evening Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic was due to deliver the Pearcey Oration in Melbourne and set out his plan for Australians to be makers not takers of technology in critical industries. And quantum is a priority, given the lead position Australian research has in the global race, thanks to ­Michelle Simmons and her team.

Simmons is one of the named advisers on the government’s Quantum Committee to be chaired by Australia’s Chief Scientist Cathy Foley. Foley brings expertise in physics from the CSIRO, where she led the Quantum Technology Roadmap for the country in 2020. That road map will be updated next month.

The Quantum Committee boasts talent from across the sector: quantum hubs, universities, software development, artificial intelligence ethics, venture capitalist Blackbird, the CSIRO chief scientist, Australia’s Chief Defence Scientist and the Business Council of Australia.

“Quantum technologies will transform communications, sensing and computing. They’ll enable new manufacturing possibilities, new drug treatments, new possibilities in foundational science.” Husic says.

Backed by $15bn in promised government funding for reconstruction, including $1bn for critical industries such as quantum, Husic’s industry and science portfolio takes on a criticality of its own for the economy, jobs and skills.

In his Pearcey Oration speech Husic remembers Trevor Pearcey, the pioneer who between 1947 and 1949 led the team that built a digital computer, CSIRAC. At the time, CSIRAC was only the fourth operational stored program electronic computer ever constructed. And only the US and the UK beat Australia into the computer age.

Chief Scientist Cathy Foley.

Seventy-five years later, in June this year, Simmons and team at Silicon Quantum Computing, working with UNSW, built the world’s first integrated circuit at the atomic scale.

The team believes it is on track to deliver quantum leaps in computing, agriculture and pharmaceuticals.

Australia makes up just over 0.3 per cent of world population, but accounts for 4.2 per cent of global quantum research. Husic is backing the nation’s human quantum intelligence and its growing quantum ecosystem.

“We are recognised as world leaders in quantum technology,” he was to say in his speech. “We have Australia’s first quantum computing company – Silicon Quantum Computing. And Australia’s first venture capital-backed quantum technology company, Q-CTRL and more than a dozen quantum research teams.”

The quantum computing race has pitched Google, IBM, Honeywell, Intel and Microsoft against one another, all backed by huge investment.

Simmons admits the final winner could come from anywhere. But unlike the big players, SQC works with atoms in silicon and uses simulations of molecules that could develop other applications for businesses far earlier than the quantum computing finish line.

Breakthroughs could come in solar technology through artificial photosynthesis or dramatically lowered costs for nitrogen extraction in the fertiliser industry or superconductors that operate at room temperature.

These opportunities support the government’s decision to build a national strategy for quantum. Husic will also launch a national strategy for robotics in March next year.

Despite federal budget constraints, this portfolio has given Husic the chance to make a difference, and he knows it.

The light manufacturing and service industries in his electorate of Chifley in western Sydney are already hungry for changes in AI, robotics and software – changes that will be backed by the $15bn Reconstruction Fund focused on emerging technologies.

The government plans to partner with businesses and super funds to unlock private investment of $30bn through the fund.

In his Pearcey Oration, Husic laments the lost years that followed the innovation of Pearcey’s computer or the engineering genius of the Snowy Hydro Scheme: “Somehow we’ve forgotten Australia is a nation forged not just by our challenging landscape, our shared history, but by the outsized scale of our technological and engineering achievements.”

Labor is making some big bets on the future. Husic says that just as the Chifley government’s Snowy Scheme was central to post-war reconstruction, the Albanese government is now called upon to do the same.

“To remake our economies and societies – as we emerge from a global pandemic, wrestle with the scale of climate change and the rapid and accelerating pace of technological change,” he says.

On Husic’s agenda, expect a reboot of the research sector starting with the imminent launch of a new Innovation Exchange. He also wants more traction on the jobs and skills challenge, where the government has a target of 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030.

After the recent summit, Mr Husic announced a digital and skills compact under which industry, government and unions are to co-operate to help address skill shortages and grow the Australian tech sector. This too will be supported by the Reconstruction Fund.