ORNL to Establish New Research Facility for Quantum Information Science

The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has announced plans to build a new research facility dedicated to quantum information science.

Slated to be completed in late 2022, the Translational Research Capability building will triple the laboratory space that ORNL reserves for research in the emerging field.

The TRC will provide capabilities in atomic fabrication and materials characterization as well as allow researchers to advance the field of quantum modeling and simulation, ORNL said.

ORNL noted that its research in quantum information science began more than two decades ago. The laboratory said it has since formed three separate but connected groups for quantum computing, networking and sensing.

Jeff Nichols, associate lab director for computing and computational sciences at ORNL, said that the laboratory’s investments in quantum information science have already paid off in terms of discovery.

“Just as ORNL helped to usher in the atomic age, so too will we be instrumental in the realization of the quantum revolution,” Nichols added.

In August 2020, DOE’s Office of Technology Transitions published a document highlighting the advances, applications, challenges and partnerships in the field of quantum information science and technology.

OTT said that the emerging technology already has early adopters in the fields of cryptology, quantum chemistry and quantum sensing.

Quantum information science also has applications in the military. The nonprofit Universities Space Research Association recently announced the launch of the second phase of its quantum computing project with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

USRA and DARPA’s Optimization with Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum devices program is aimed at leveraging new benchmarking tools to improve the performance of quantum computers for military use.