Quantum Technology Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Energy Security & Net Zero
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
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Quantum Technology
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(1 day, 9 hours ago)
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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
The noble Lord asks an important question. Quantum computers will be best for quantum problems. Drug discovery is a quantum problem, so it is exactly the sort of area for which this will be useful. We have five hubs specifically looking at both basic science and translation: a biomedical sensing hub dealing with imaging and other areas, including blood testing; a sensing, imaging and timing hub in Birmingham; an integrated network hub in Edinburgh; a quantum computing hub in Oxford; and a hub on position, navigation and timing. These are all about pulling the technology through in due course.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, given the worrying flow of some UK quantum companies taking money from or moving abroad, particularly to the US, in search of additional funding, is my noble friend the Minister confident that we are doing enough to map where in the UK the expertise is? It is important to us for national security, apart from anything else, that we have our own sovereign capability. Are we mapping it as well as we can and do we have an early warning system, such that we can intervene when some of these newly developing companies are thinking of going abroad, so that we can give them the support, funding or whatever else they need to stay in the UK, where we need them to grow?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
My noble friend asks an important question. There is no doubt that UK quantum companies look pretty attractive at the moment. We have a good idea of where those companies are, what their skills are and what is going on across the quantum space, but I believe there is a need to have all the levers in place to make sure that these companies stay in the UK. Yes, that is about funding, but also about regulation, procurement and giving the signals that can leverage the investment that these companies will need, as many of them are getting up to very significant valuations.