The Quantum Application Lab (QAL) announced receiving the “Subsidie Economische Structuur en Arbeidsmarktversterking" (SESA) grant, a significant financial boost of 1.2 million euros, awarded by the Amsterdam municipality, on 23 November. This strategic investment in QAL reinforces the local economic structure and labor market and amplifies the value of quantum technologies for end-users across various sectors, such as life-science & health, energy, automotive and finance.
Upscaling
The SESA grant marks a pivotal moment for QAL, enabling the consortium to scale its operations and intensify its activity in quantum computing application development. With these funds, QAL will appoint new quantum innovation officers, a role crucial in translating the high-level academic knowledge to tangible end-user benefits. This ensures that our quantum solutions are aligned with market needs.
As QAL’s current innovation officer, Koen Leijnse, reflects: “With the support of the Amsterdam municipality, QAL will not only contribute to the economic structure by creating high-value jobs and fostering a skilled workforce adept in the latest quantum technologies, but also by bringing closer the advent of practical advantage from using quantum computers.”
Quantum computing is a complex and emerging technology and as such, stands to benefit greatly from specialized expertise that spans multiple disciplines and sectors. Recognizing this, QAL leverages the diverse proficiencies of its consortium members to demystify and streamline the implementation of quantum computing application into practical workflows, making the intricacies of quantum algorithms more accessible to a broader range of industries.
Consortium
The QAL consortium spans the whole range of quantum application development from fundamental quantum algorithms knowledge found at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) and University of Amsterdam (UvA), to high performance computing expertise through SURF, software development proficiency at the Netherlands eScience Centre, applied research at The Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) and Dutch quantum-computing-in-the-cloud provider Quantum Inspire (provided by QuTech – a collaboration between the TU Delft and TNO). On top of that, QAL is partnered with additional quantum-hardware providers, such as IBM, QuiX Quantum, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure.
For more information on QAL's initiatives and how this grant is leveraged, please visit QAL's website.
