UI partners with IBM to expand quantum computing facilities - The Daily Illini
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The University has renewed a partnership with IBM to tackle new obstacles in quantum computing, according to professor in Engineering and IBM-Illinois Discovery Accelerator Institute partnership co-director Deming Chen. The state of Illinois has invested over $500 million in founding a “quantum shore” in Chicago to establish “on-ramps” directly to researchers at Illinois universities. IIDAI was established in 2021, but will be expanded and renewed starting in August of this year, according to Chen. The Institute is the latest collaboration between Midwestern academia and industry, preceded by the University’s creation of the Discovery Partners Institute in Chicago. The IIDAI will be headquartered in the previously established DPI. “Working together (with IBM) is very exciting,” Chen said. “We can work together to solve some (paralyzing) computing tasks.” Chen outlined the possibilities of the partnership, such as the development of quantum algorithms. According to Chen, when these are run on hardware capable of handling quantum computation, quantum algorithms could allow undergraduate students to develop new pharmaceutical drugs, among other complex solutions. “While the goal is simply to introduce quantum hardware to solve problems that take a long time on classical computers, the hope is that it affects not just quantum computing, but other fields as well,” said André Schleife, co-lead of the Quantum Thrust and professor in Engineering. Gov. JB Pritzker announced on April 29 that IBM would be founding an innovation hub in the future site of the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park campus, according to the Chicago Tribune. In the public address, he praised the partnership as one with potential for “countless advancements” in science and technology. “It makes sense for IIDAI to work (with IBM) because we have (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) here,” Chen said. “NCSA has Delta and DeltaAI clusters — several hundreds of CPUs — and IBM sees that as the crown jewel.” Illinois provides the developing quantum and supercomputing industries with special tax breaks in a program known as Economic Development for a Growing Economy. The subsequent credits could amount to $19 million over the course of a decade. “There are a lot of reasons to be excited about the entire Institute,” Schleife said. “For us, it’s exciting because we’ll be able to use IBM quantum hardware. It’s awesome that we can run our research on such machines. … We would like to develop ways to use those machines (more widely).