New Delhi: On the afternoon of Valentine’s Day in 2025, L. Venkata Subramaniam was walking outside his home on the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, campus. His phone rang. On the line was Andhra Pradesh chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
Subramaniam, then head of IBM Quantum India, expected a broad conversation about emerging technology. Instead, Naidu had a pointed question: “How do we bring an IBM Quantum system to Amaravati?”
Naidu had already spoken to Veezhinathan Kamakoti, the director of IIT Madras. He wanted to know what it would take to attract researchers, companies and investment around this emerging technology that could one day address many challenges the world is grappling with, including cancer research and climate change.
Within hours, Andhra Pradesh officials began contacting more academic institutions. The discussion quickly expanded beyond access to quantum systems to manufacturing, infrastructure, skilling and startups.
Naidu helped make Hyderabad a technology hub in the 1990s by investing in infrastructure before the ecosystem existed. A quantum hub in Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh’s new capital, is a similar bet, though much of the city is still under construction.
And yet, this bet seems more challenging—quantum computing today is expensive, fragile and still largely experimental. Current machines aren’t error-free. Powerful, reliable systems capable of transforming industries are still years away. But several governments are racing to build capability. Fear of missing out (Fomo), an anxiety common in the world of venture funding and stock market investing, appears to have taken hold—they are wary that missing the early window could leave them dependent on foreign systems. That has triggered a global race for quantum talent, infrastructure and capability.
The ‘utility era’
Traditional computers process information as bits, where each bit exists as either a 0 or a 1. A qubit, or quantum bit, is the basic unit of information used to encode data in quantum computing. Thanks to the strange rules of quantum physics, a qubit can exist in a combination of 0 and 1 at the same time. Qubits can store more data, far more than traditional bits can, while performing advanced computations.
This allows quantum machines to explore many possible solutions simultaneously in ways classical computers cannot easily match. For certain extremely difficult problems such as accurately simulating molecules for new drugs, optimizing complex supply chains or breaking specific types of encryption, they can be more powerful than even the largest supercomputers.
The technology, like we mentioned before, is also overhyped. Quantum computers are not about to replace your laptop or run everyday applications. For most practical computing tasks, classical systems still remain far more useful and efficient. But for some problems, quantum systems could eventually offer a significant advantage.
In September 2025, HSBC and IBM reported results from a hybrid quantum-classical experiment on production-scale bond trading data. The researchers said the approach improved trade-completion predictions by up to 34% compared with classical methods. The study was among the early public demonstrations of quantum computing’s potential on a real-world business problem.
IBM says systems with more than 100 qubits are beginning to tackle calculations that classical supercomputers struggle to simulate efficiently, marking what it calls “a new era of utility for quantum computing.” The company expects more practical applications to emerge later this decade.
Why it matters for India
India’s interest in quantum computing is shaped partly by its technology history. While the country built a formidable software services industry and a deep pool of technical talent, it played only a limited role in the hardware revolution of the 1980s and 1990s.
Quantum offers a rare opportunity to change that. The technology is still nascent, and no country has yet locked up the supply chain.
In 2023, the Centre launched the National Quantum Mission with ₹6,000 crore to build capability across computing, communication, sensing and materials. The programme is deliberately distributed with four thematic hubs leading the effort: the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, for computing; IIT Madras with the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) for communication; IIT Bombay for sensing and metrology, and IIT Delhi for materials and devices.
According to a written response to questions from this writer, India’s department of science and technology stated that these hubs connect 152 researchers from 43 institutions across 17 states and two Union territories.
The mission has set ambitious targets, including developing systems with up to 1,000 qubits, creating a 2,000km quantum communication network, and identifying early applications in defence, cybersecurity and healthcare. NITI Aayog, the Indian government’s think tank, has stated that India will need roughly 100,000 trained quantum developers in the coming decade if it hopes to capture a meaningful share of the future market.
Talent is already one of the country’s strengths. Indians, for instance, have been the largest users of IBM’s free quantum cloud access outside the US. The challenge now is turning that research activity into commercial products.
Access is a major constraint. Globally, advanced quantum hardware is tightly controlled. Facilities in the US operate under export restrictions, while national labs in Europe and Japan often prioritize domestic researchers. Even relatively open facilities can involve high costs and waiting periods of 6–12 months. For India, that could mean not just technological lag, but long-term dependence on external infrastructure.
IIT Madras’s Kamakoti sees the current moment as the formation of a “layered ecosystem”. National hubs are focused on foundational research, he said. “State initiatives like Amaravati are trying to carry that research into working systems, applications and companies.”
Industry is beginning to notice the shift. “The ecosystem has moved faster in the last two years than in the previous decade,” a spokesperson from Nasscom, the Indian information technology industry’s lobby body, said.
The gap with global leaders, however, remains significant. Heather West, IDC’s Global Quantum Research Lead, describes India as strong in academic output and talent development, but still early in enterprise adoption and years behind the more coordinated programmes in the US and Europe.
The Amaravati experiment
That Valentine’s Day call was an early step in the effort that became Amaravati Quantum Valley. On 14 April, Andhra Pradesh formally launched the initiative to bring together research institutions, startups, industry and quantum infrastructure in a single ecosystem.
At the Quantum Valley, the centrepiece would be a 120-plus qubit IBM Quantum System Two, scheduled to be installed later this year in a custom-built, vibration-proof facility. IBM typically provides access to such systems remotely from the US. The Amaravati deployment will allow researchers in India to access one of the company’s most advanced quantum systems from within the country.
Designed and assembled locally by Qbit Force, the state’s quantum hardware facility, with contributions from institutions including the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, IISc Bengaluru and the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), they allow researchers to inspect components, swap parts and experiment directly. The aim is to build indigenous engineering capability. The IBM system, while accessible to users, will not be open for hardware-level modification.
Two smaller quantum testbed systems, Amaravati 1S and 1Q, are already operational at SRM University-AP and a government facility in Gannavaram.
Inside SRM, students are already assembling and operating the systems as part of their training. “That kind of exposure is critical in a field like quantum,” said Ch. Satish Kumar, vice chancellor of SRM University-AP.
The state is also trying to ensure the hardware arrives with problems worth solving. “The goal is to have around 100 use cases ready before the main quantum computer is deployed,” said C.V. Sridhar, mission director of the Andhra Pradesh State Quantum Mission.
Government departments are sharing data sets linked to ambulance deployment, civil supplies logistics and fibre network planning with academic teams and startups. Teams are testing algorithms on challenge data sets from programmes run by IBM and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), while a bank is setting up what it calls a ‘Quantum Factory’ in the region, according to Sridhar.
The ‘project lead’
Several people involved in the project describe unusually close political involvement. Amith Singhee, director of IBM Research India and chief technology officer of IBM India and South Asia, said Naidu operated “almost as a project lead,” personally convening IBM, TCS, Larsen & Toubro (L&T), IIT Madras and the department of science and technology. “That collective decision-making and visible follow-through made the ecosystem credible,” Singhee said.
For the state government, the ambition extends beyond hosting a single quantum computer. “Our vision is to build a complete ecosystem in Amaravati, combining research, skilling, startups, advanced computing and industry applications,” Nara Lokesh, Andhra Pradesh’s minister for information technology, electronics and communications, said.
Subramaniam, who left a long career with IBM in Delhi to build Qbit Force in Amaravati, believes timing matters. Quantum hardware is still new everywhere. “If we get in now,” he said, “we have a chance to control parts of the supply chain in the next 10 years.”
He compares it to an earlier industrial transition: “When Maruti started in 1984, everything was imported. We had to start somewhere.”
Missing components
For all the visible momentum in Amaravati, the harder part may still lie ahead.
Inside the Quantum Valley, Indian teams are assembling parts of the hardware stack. Researchers from institutions including IISc Bengaluru and startups such as Qbit Force are working on processors, control electronics and refrigeration systems.
But many critical components such as dilution refrigerators at advanced scale, processor fabrication, cryogenic cables, and RF (radio-frequency) amplifiers still depend on global suppliers.
“Indigenous capability should not be seen as absolute self-reliance,” said Kamakoti. “No country today builds every component independently.” The more realistic goal, he added, is “equitable interdependence”, developing strength in critical areas while managing dependence elsewhere.
Where quantum meets AI
Meanwhile, the conversation around quantum increasingly extends beyond quantum computing itself. Policymakers and industry participants interviewed for this story view it as part of a wider push into artificial intelligence (AI), advanced computing, semiconductor manufacturing and digital infrastructure.
AI is the clearest example of that overlap. But while the two technologies are often discussed together, they solve different kinds of problems.
AI is designed to find patterns, make predictions and generate outputs from data. Quantum computing, by contrast, is being developed to tackle certain simulation and optimisation problems that remain difficult for classical computers.
That distinction matters in fields such as materials science and drug discovery. For researchers trying to understand how atoms and molecules behave in a new material or medicine, AI can help narrow the possibilities. Quantum systems could eventually help model how atoms, molecules, and materials behave at a much deeper level. The world’s largest technology companies are betting on both.
IBM, Google, Microsoft and Amazon are all building quantum programmes alongside large AI businesses. In pharmaceuticals, researchers are exploring whether quantum systems could eventually help simulate molecules more accurately for drug discovery. In logistics and finance, the focus is on optimisation problems involving millions of variables.
“Quantum is not replacing AI,” said Subramaniam. “But over time, the two technologies could complement each other in very powerful ways.”
Amaravati’s quantum push, for instance, sits alongside investments in AI infrastructure, data centres, electronics manufacturing and clean energy.
What happens next
Nara Lokesh believes the next two to three years will be judged by talent pipelines, active startups and visible commercial revenue. “If we see progress across these areas, Quantum Valley moves from a concept to a real ecosystem,” he said.
For IBM’s Singhee, the key questions are whether Indian startups can build globally relevant products and whether the research base keeps producing meaningful breakthroughs. “You need both,” he said. “A scientific story and a commercial story.”
Some early commercial signals are emerging at the national level. Bengaluru-based QNu Labs has demonstrated quantum key distribution systems for secure communications. Another startup, QpiAI, has developed an indigenous 64-qubit processor aimed at optimisation and AI workloads. PQuest Group, working under IIT Bombay’s sensing hub, has built a Quantum Diamond Microscope for applications in areas such as neuroscience and materials research.
Kamakoti expects the transition from research to meaningful industrial applications to take several more years. Commercial-scale adoption, he said, will take even longer.
Later this year, the IBM quantum system is expected to arrive in Amaravati. The next phase will depend on who uses it, what they build, and whether early pilots evolve into practical applications.
For India, the broader question is whether early investments in quantum can translate into long-term capability. Amaravati is not the whole answer to that ambition. But it may be, as Subramaniam put it, the place where someone had to start.