3 May 2007

QIST centre to push frontiers of information technology

QUANTUM information and science technology (QIST) holds vast potential in bringing revolutionary changes to a country's economy and lifestyle of its people. If Singapore is not ready, it will be left behind. NUS Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor Prof Artur Ekert, Director of the new Research Centre of Excellence (RCE) in QIST expected to be in operation at NUS by December this year, said Singapore has all the ingredients to build up this field -- and the risk of not doing so is enormous.

QUANTUM LAB: Assoc Prof Christian Kurtsiefer (extreme left) showing the lab to (from left) Dr Tony Tan, NRF Chairman; Mr Gan Kim Yong, Minister of State for Education and Manpower; Prof Barry Halliwell, NUS Deputy President (Research & Technology); and Prof Shih Choon Fong, NUS President.

NUS President Prof Shih Choon Fong said that NUS' proposal for an RCE in QIST was selected after stringent peer scientific review. The $150 million RCE went through a two-stage selection process involving Ministry of Education's Academic Research Council before it was approved by the Research, Innovation and Enterprise Council (RIEC) in March as the first of several RCEs to be set up with co-funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF) and the Ministry of Education.

TOP CENTRE IN QIST: Lee Kong Chian Centennial Professor Artur Ekert heads the new Research Centre of Excellence with vision to be one of the world's top QIST centres in five years. He is a pioneer in quantum information science and co-inventor of quantum cryptography. A Professor of Quantum Physics at University of Oxford, he has advised government agencies and research institutes in the EU, US and Japan on setting up international and national projects in quantum information technology.

QIST is a new field of science and technology combining and drawing on the disciplines of physical science, mathematics, computer science and engineering. For example, quantum cryptography can create unbreakable codes and guarantee perfectly secure communication. Quantum computers of the future will be capable of solving problems for which there are no existing efficient classical algorithms.

The Centre at NUS is the first research institute in Southeast Asia dedicated to QIST. It hopes to attract 100 to 200 top researchers from over the world. Dr Tony Tan, NRF Chairman, said QIST will push the frontiers of communication technology. Quantum theory allows atoms, photons and other quantum objects to store information in an inherently new way. Knowledge in controlling and manipulating individual photons, atoms and ions could pave the way for a wide range of applications.

Centres and research institutes in QIST have been established in most of the US top universities and in countries such as UK, Germany, France and Austria, Canada, Australia, Japan and China. Singapore however, has the necessary strengths to become a top centre in this field, said Prof Ekert. For example, NUS is one of the world's strongest sources able to produce "entangled photons" (powerful, efficient paired photons which are correlated to each other in a predicted manner). The University also has top expertise in quantum communication and cryptography. The Institute of Materials Research and Engineering has good microfabrication facilities to produce fabrics which allow interaction of photons.