The Gulf is sowing its seeds in the quantum computing realm
As engineers at Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute assemble the country’s first quantum computer, the Gulf region’s universities are finally starting to prepare for a qubit-powered era.
IF QUANTUM COMPUTING is to truly bring about a new age of innovation in the Middle East, its machines will need to be intuitive enough for people to use them. College students procrastinating on their papers and assignments should be able to log on and churn out effortless code. Quantum code.
That’s what NYU Abu Dhabi professors Sana Odeh and Hisham Sati envision after organizing the UAE’s first quantum computing hackathon in April. Drawing inspiration from similar events hosted by MIT and CERN, the scientists brought 160 students from around the world to Abu Dhabi, where the quantum coders-in-training applied the qubit-powered machines to problems in sectors like healthcare, logistics, and financial services. “There’s going to be a need for millions of jobs in the future, which will be based on quantum computing,” says Odeh, chair of NYU Abu Dhabi’s annual Hackathons for Social Good.
The quantum hackathon served as a debut, of sorts, for the launch of NYU Abu Dhabi’s newly-opened Center for Quantum and Topological systems. The center was established in order to host research projects and spearhead outreach efforts, according to the university. It also plans to offer both academic and executive programs, according to Sati, principal investigator. “We’re proposing courses on quantum computing and also proposing a graduate program in quantum science and technology,” he says. “We might be issuing certificates through the center, where entities from industry will come to get the basic training.”
These propositions are far from novel, at a global level. IBM began making its five qubit computer available to the world back in 2016, and companies like Amazon and Google have since followed suit. Now, IBM even issues certificates to developers that can use the programing kit Qiskit, based on their performance on a 60-question exam. Google teamed up with NASA to establish a quantum computing lab in 2013, and IBM put some of its prototype quantum processors on the internet for anyone to experiment with in 2016.
Still, such initiatives from local universities could help strengthen an emerging quantum ecosystem in the region, as Gulf countries deepen their commitment to establishing knowledge-first economies. For instance, the UAE’s explicit commitment to developing quantum capabilities has already encouraged the sector. Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is currently fabricating superconducting circuits at temperatures colder than outer space, as it builds the Arab world’s first quantum machine. By the end of this summer, Andrew Lutken, Executive Director of TII’s Quantum Computation Group, anticipates that the institute will begin producing Abu Dhabi’s first quantum chips, or qubits.
UAE institutions aren’t alone in eyeing the field. Last year, Saudi Arabia’s graduate- only university KAUST announced that it was partnering with the quantum startup Zapata Computing. Although the university already relies on its supercomputer to refine the aerodynamics of F1 cars and airplanes, it says that Zapata’s software could help it explore how quantum technologies represent an advantage over classical computing tools in its research.
More recently, Qatari defense company Barzan Holdings invested $10 million in Hamad bin Khalifa University (HBKU) as part of a national initiative on quantum computing. The Doha-based university announced the news this April, adding that it would establish a Qatar Center for Quantum Computing (QC2), geared toward researching quantum computing, cryptography, and quantum artificial intelligence. “Our collaboration will enhance our respective roles in helping to secure the strategic future of Qatar and its position as a global player in emerging technologies,” says Dr. Saif Al-Kuwari, an assistant professor at HBKU and recipient of the multi-million dollar grant.
Despite some signs of academic interest, Gulf countries have arrived slightly late to the party, as governments around the world race to harness quantum computing’s potential. The US, UK, European Union, and China have each promised to invest at least $1 billion in the technology, in the hopes of becoming the first to apply it toward designing better batteries, breaking into encryption systems, and other Herculean tasks.
But physicists may take decades to find the solutions to those problems. In the meantime, some researchers worry that excitement over the technology’s future potential is inflating expectations over what’s achievable today—from both companies and job-seekers.
Forget the surplus of easy-to-train quantum developers. There’s still a glaring need for quantum computer scientists and engineers in the region, according to Faisal Khan, a former professor at Khalifa University, where he headed the university’s Quantum Computing Research Group. “Quantum computers are essentially a hardware phenomenon; you have to have the right hardware to make things work,” Khan explains. “That only exists in a few places on the planet,” he adds. You need the right talent, too—and Khan says the engineer shortage has become increasingly apparent to him in his new role as chief executive of the North Carolina-based startup Dark Star Quantum Lab. “In my opinion, you still need PhDs being trained in fundamentals of quantum mechanics, quantum physics, and mathematics,” he says. “We’re not at the stage where people can come, in large amounts, into the market and say: ‘Where’s my job?’ Because it doesn’t exist yet.”
Still, Khan concedes, the Gulf region might now be on the right track—provided quantum coding marathons are accompanied by robust engineering programs to build hardware. “To grow the ecosystem as a whole, and add value to the economy, you need to have programs and universities,” he says.