Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥ receives over €1.2 million in funding for three quantum technology projects
Business Finland has granted the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥'s Faculty of Information Technology a total of 1 258 300 euros in funding for three quantum technology related research projects.
Quantum technology is still in an early stage of development, but it is anticipated that in the future, quantum computers will be able to solve some computational problems much faster than classical computers.
Between Quantum Algorithms and Hardware led by Professor Teiko Heinosaari received a total of 469 900 euros in funding from Business Finland for two years project. The total budget of the project is 671 000 euros.
Project's objective is to discover innovative approaches that combine quantum and classical methods in practical computation and communication tasks.
"Quantum information offers unique advantages, but also comes with many limitations. Combining quantum and classical information processing is a promising direction, especially since quantum advantage may only be narrowly achieved in specific tasks in the near future", Heinosaari says.
Another project that received funding is Securing the Quantum Software Stack led by professor Tommi Mikkonen. The project got a total of 428 400 euros from Business Finland.
The project researches what novel issues quantum computing brings in the context of cybersecurity and how these new challenges can be tackled. The project also explores if the tried-and-true methods from securing our classical computer systems can also be applied in quantum computing.
The total budget of the project is 1.4 million euros, of which the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥'s share is 714 000 euros. The project is led by the University of Oulu.
The last of the funded projects is a two-year project called Enhanced Middleware for Quantum Software and it's led by Postdoctoral Researcher Vlad Ș³Ù¾±°ù²ú³Ü. The project, led by the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥, received 360 000 euros in funding from Business Finland. The total funding is 1.2 million euros, of which the Ä¢¹½Ö±²¥'s share is 600 000 euros.
The project aims to make existing quantum computers accessible to a broader range of software developers.
"The quantum software development is currently influenced primarily by physicists and information theory practitioners. The current challenges include, among other things, the lack of standardized languages to effectively develop quantum applications and execute them efficiently on existing quantum computers", Stirbu explains.
According to Stirbu, these are some of the challenges that the project seeks to address.
The Vice Dean for Research at the Faculty of Information Technology, Heikki Karjaluoto is pleased with the funding and says that it will strengthen both the university's and the faculty's position in the growing field of quantum computing.
"We are rapidly becoming one of Finland's leading quantum computing research units," says Karjaluoto.
