Hype or not, amazing quantum technology is already here

Quantum computers are not here yet but other simpler applications of quantum are already changing the world.

Leading UK quantum physicist Peter Knight is speaking at the Quantum Australia 2024 conference. Photo: Jane Dempster

Be careful of the hype around quantum computing and other quantum technologies, warns a leading British scientist in town for the Quantum Australia 2024 conference.

“We’re on a long journey,” says Sir Peter Knight, a physicist who chairs the UK National Quantum Technology Programme.

But while Professor Knight warns of the hype around quantum, and the lengthy timeframe before quantum computers reach their full potential, he also points to extraordinary quantum technologies in the here and now.

For example, cameras with quantum sensors that can detect single photons of light, and discriminate between them, have been built that can see around corners. The camera fires a laser that reflects off other objects to illuminate around a corner. It can “see” the minuscule proportion of these photons that come back to the camera and thus build up a picture of what is hidden.

Other quantum techniques use the weird quantum property of entangled particles to improve medical imaging inside the body. Two entangled photons are produced, One, in the infra-red, can penetrate inside tissue, while the other at a visible wavelength goes to a camera. Because they are entangled, what happens to the one inside the body can be inferred from the photon that is recorded by the camera.

Professor Knight, who had a long career at Imperial College London in quantum optics, said technologies such as these were benefits from the discoveries being made en route to full-scale quantum computers.

He will present to the conference on Wednesday on how quantum science can be used for economic and societal value.

Professor Knight has a close association with Australian quantum science as chair of the scientific advisory committee of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Engineers Quantum Systems.

“You’ve got some of the very best research groups in the world in Australia, producing research students and post-doctorates, and you have done for decades,” he said. “Start-ups are hunting for talent in Australia because you’ve been the major engine of providing some of the brightest young people in the field.”

Federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic will tell the conference in a speech on Wednesday that public investment in quantum science the technology is growing.

“As of 2023, total investment across all Australian governments in quantum was estimated to be $893m,” he will say.

“For a country of 26 million people, we’re punching above our weight.

“We’ve got one of the largest per capita government spends in the region, far greater than Singapore and Japan.”

Mr Husic will say Australia aims to sign more bilateral agreements with other countries to co-operate in quantum technologies, following on from two already signed with the US and Britain.

He will also say the next step is to commercialise quantum technologies, and on Tuesday night he opened the new lab of University of NSW quantum computer spin-off company Diraq.

“Australia consistently ranks in the world’s top 10 destinations for high-impact quantum research. Now we want more of that research commercialised here,” he will say.

Mr Husic will say that quantum is also critical to the pillar two technologies being developed with the US and Britain as part of the AUKUS security pact.