Jaipur (Rajasthan) [India], June 11 (ANI): Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology, Railways and Information & Broadcasting, Ashwini Vaishnaw, on Thursday announced the establishment of an Advanced Quantum Computing and Quantum Communications Lab at the Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT), Jaipur.

According to the release, the lab will be established under the Electronics and ICT Academic Project of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). It will focus on building indigenous capabilities in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), Quantum Computing simulation, and Quantum Sensing hardware components.

Addressing students and faculty members, the Union Minister said that while the current technological wave is being driven by AI, the next major technological wave will be led by Quantum Technology.

The Minister stated that the work to be undertaken under this project will be of significant importance for the country. The lab will also undertake research in Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), which is important from a national security perspective, the release stated.

The Union Minister also announced that students of MNIT Jaipur will get access to Lam Research's 'Semiverse' platform. It is a digital twin-based semiconductor fabrication and training ecosystem.

Through Semiverse, students can now study semiconductor chip structures in 3D, understand chip manufacturing processes, and simulate fabrication steps in a virtual environment, the release stated.

Union Minister mentioned that there is a demand for more than a million semiconductor design workforce, as per the industry's estimate. India can easily bridge this gap. Already, companies like NVIDIA, Qualcomm, ARM, & AMD are designing the advanced semiconductor chips of 2 and 3 nm in India. This is possible because of the design workforce.

Vaishnaw said that the Government of India as part of the Chips to Startup (C2S) Programme, is providing Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools to more than 323 universities across the country. These are state-of-the-art semiconductor design tools of leading companies such as Synopsys, Cadence and Renesas, the release stated.

Using these tools, more than 100 student-designed chips from institutions across India have been fabricated at Semiconductor Laboratory (SCL), Mohali. The Minister encouraged students to make full use of these advanced EDA tools.

Union Minister announced that AI Lab will also be established at MNIT Jaipur. The lab will provide the facilities, including advanced computing and tools for research and innovation.

The focus will be on connecting it with the network of the IndiaAI mission. In this regard, he highlighted the work being carried out by the Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur related to deepfake detection technology.

Later, Union Minister, along with Heeralal Nagar, Minister of State (IC) for the Energy Department in the Government of Rajasthan and Gopal Sharma, Member, Rajasthan Member of Legislative Assembly (Civil Lines, Jaipur) inaugurated the Makers Lab at MNIT Jaipur.

Makers Lab will provide students with experiential and hands-on training opportunities in both software and hardware technologies. This will include sensors, embedded systems, compute devices and electronics systems, the release stated.

Earlier during the visit, Vaishnaw interacted with students and faculty members. Students demonstrated several projects and applications in the fields of AI, robotics, drone, structural engineering and post-quantum cryptography. (ANI)