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Although quantum computing is a fast growing field, skill and expertise in this new area of technology is desperately needed, and leading Indian institutions along with IBM India have been working on a programme to skill India.

Quantum computing has found application across medicine, agriculture, and finance. The government of India launched the National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications (NMQTA) stressing the importance of pushing forward the quantum domain in India. IBM India recently collaborated with leading institutions of India to accelerate training and research in quantum computing. Gadgets 360 talked to L Venkata Subramaniam, Senior Manager, AI at IBM Research India, Professor Anil Shaji from Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram, and Professor Anil Prabhakar of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras to understand what quantum computing is all about.

Is quantum computing a once in an era sort of change?

The power of quantum computing comes from two basic phenomena of quantum mechanics – superposition and quantum entanglement. While the bits in a classical computer exist as a string of zeros and ones, a quantum bit or a qubit can stay in a state of a combination of zero and one – this is called superposition. Entanglement, the other phenomena that powers quantum computing, is a connection between qubits. “The qubits needn’t be close to each other. One qubit can be in Delhi and the other can be in the other end of the universe. But if they are entangled, then by looking at the state of one of the qubit, you’ll be able to predict the state of the other qubit,” explained Subramaniam. By exploiting these two phenomena, quantum computing can be put into use in a wide range of activities ranging from speeding up the discovery of drugs and fertilizers to solving complex optimisation problems.

The government in its budget last year had announced NMQTA under the Ministry of Science and Technology with a total budget outlay of Rs. 8000 crore for the advancement of quantum technology. IBM’s collaboration with the leading educational institutions in India is aligned with this step by the government. Through IBM’s Quantum Educator Programme, the company will join hands with the faculty and students of Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) – Pune, IISER – Thiruvananthapuram, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Jodhpur, IIT – Kanpur, IIT – Kharagpur, IIT – Madras, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Mumbai, and the University of Calcutta to further research and education in quantum computing.

IBM introduced quantum computers over the cloud almost 5 years ago. The collaborating institutions will get priority access to IBM’s quantum systems, learning resources, and quantum tools over the cloud. Thus the students will get an opportunity to work on actual quantum computers and programme them using Qiskit, a python-based open-source framework developed by IBM.

Skilling India to lead the way?

A 2019 study published by Progressive Policy Institute pointed out that India will overtake the US as the world’s largest developer population centre by 2024. With a bit of training starting at the university level, the STEM students from India could adapt themselves to work and lead in the quantum computing arena with greater efficiency.

Talking about the current state of quantum technology courses in Indian institutions, Subramaniam said, “A lot of the courses are very theoretical in nature, there are no hands-on lab sessions. We are enabling the students and the faculty to get all the materials including the lab materials, the study material, and the start up code which will get them started”.

According to Professor Shaji of IISER Thiruvananthapuram, there is a bit of an issue in managing the expectations of students regarding quantum computing. “A lot of students are really interested in studying quantum computing now because of all the emphasis and also a bit of a hype surrounding quantum computing and quantum technologies,” Professor Shaji said. IISER

Thiruvananthapuram is also a part of the NMQTA. One of the researches that IISER is undertaking involves building a quantum computer using a different technology than that of IBM.

Professor Shaji said that the collaboration initiated by IBM will have a significant cascading effect in the term of five to ten years as the students are getting an early exposure to this up and coming technology. Talking about the student’s response he added, “There is quite a bit of news hype around this subject, so one goes in there expecting miracles to come out of it. It is important that the students understand that the technology is still in its baby steps. It is necessary to understand there are things that you can do and there are things that you would like to do but cannot do yet.”

IIT Madras has a Centre for Quantum Information, Communication, and Computing, where quantum computing is one among the three verticals in quantum research for the institution. Apart from the Quantum Educator’s Programme, IIT Madras has also joined hands with IBM for a course on quantum computing at the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), an online learning platform funded by the Ministry of Human Resource and Development, Government of India which provides free courses on university-level STEM subjects. The quantum computing course on NPTEL which is set to start by late August has already received over 6,000 registrations, a clear indication of student-interest towards the subject.

Professor Prabhakar of IIT Madras said that the institution has priority access to a number of IBM’s quantum machines. “Our students are able to take a quantum computing lab where they are running problems on these machines. Many of the machines are also available to the public, but not with priority. We can also reserve some machines for use for our students. This enables the students to be more focused on what they are doing. Our goal is to be able to train at least 15 students each year at a higher level.”

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A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

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July 3, 2025

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A Planet with a Death Wish: How HIP 67522 b Is Forcing Its Star to Explode

Scientists have caught a planet with a death wish, which is an alien world, orbiting very near to its star, and so speedy that it is causing the star to go to its death with bursting explosions. HIP 67522 b is the planet, and it is of the same size as Jupiter with a seven-day orbit around its host star. These orbits are disturbing the magnetic field of the star and causing enormous blasting eruptions to blow back the planet and make it wrinkled. This is the first time that a planet is influencing the host star, as the astronomers reported in a study published on July 2, 2025, in the Journal Nature.

A Planet with a Death Wish: HIP 67522 b’s Fiery Orbit

As per the study by NASA, Ekaterina Ilin, the first author of the study and an astrophysicist at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, said that the planet was observed to trigger the energetic flares. It has been predicted by the scientists that the waves are setting off explosions that are going to happen.

Magnetic Chaos: Planet Triggering Star’s Explosions

Stars are burning plasma, gigantic balls with charged particles or ions that move on their surface to form strong magnetic fields. Since the magnetic fields cannot cross each other, sometimes these field knots suddenly snap to launch flares of radiation known as solar flares, which are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections, also known as surface plasma.

As many planets have a magnetic field, scientists have long wondered whether the planets, having close orbits near their stars, might disturb these strong magnetic fields and trigger the explosions. For years, scientists have observed whether the planets can influence the magnetic behaviour of their host stars, especially the ones that are close to their orbits.

A New Era of Star-Planet Relationship Studies

A planet with a strong magnetic field orbits around a star which has a delicate magnetic field, then it might be bombarded with solar radiation. These interactions helps int he study of star and planet bond and further the evolution of atmospher and magnetic field.

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Webb Telescope Spots Possible Jellyfish Galaxy 12 Billion Light-Years Away

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July 3, 2025

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Webb Telescope Spots Possible Jellyfish Galaxy 12 Billion Light-Years Away

Astronomers have discovered a new “jellyfish” galaxy about 12 billion light-years away using the James Webb Space Telescope. It appears to have tentacle-like streams of gas and stars trailing off one side, a signature feature of jellyfish galaxies. These galaxies develop such trails via ram pressure stripping as they move through dense cluster environments, triggering star formation in the stripped gas. The find was made by Ian Roberts of Waterloo University, and details are described in a preprint on arXiv. More analysis is needed to confirm the classification, but early signs strongly suggest this object is indeed a jellyfish galaxy.

What Are Jellyfish Galaxies?

According to NASA, jellyfish galaxies are so named because of the long, trailing streams of gas and young stars that extend from one side of the galaxy. This phenomenon occurs when a galaxy moves rapidly through the hot, dense gas in a cluster, and ram pressure strips material away. The stripped gas forms a wake behind the galaxy, and this wake often lights up with bursts of new star formation. At the same time, the process can deprive the galaxy’s core of gas, potentially slowing star formation in the galaxy’s center.

Because the jellyfish stage is short-lived on cosmic timescales, astronomers rarely catch galaxies in this act. Studying jellyfish galaxies gives scientists insight into how dense environments affect galaxy evolution and star formation.

Discovery and Future Research

The researchers caution that the galaxy’s apparent “tentacles” may partly be an artifact of the imaging method. If confirmed, this object (COSMOS2020-635829) would be the most distant known jellyfish galaxy, offering a rare glimpse of how ram pressure stripping and cluster-driven quenching operated in the early cosmos. As the study authors note, finding a jellyfish at z>1 reinforces the idea that these environmental effects were already at work near the peak of cosmic star formation.

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Mars Dust Devils May Spark Lightning, Might Pose Risks to Rovers: Study

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19 hours ago

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July 3, 2025

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Mars Dust Devils May Spark Lightning, Might Pose Risks to Rovers: Study

Dust devils on Mars – swirling columns of dust and air that often scour the Red Planet’s surface – may be crackling with electricity, a new computer-modeling study suggests. Researchers led by Varun Sheel simulated how Mars’s dry atmosphere and frictional dust collisions charge up grains inside a vortex. They found these fields could grow so strong that brief lightning-like discharges might occur. This electrification is a concern for surface missions, since charged dust could cling to rover wheels, solar panels and antennas, blocking sunlight and interfering with communications.

Formation and Features of Martian Dust Devils

According to the study, dust devils form when the Sun heats Mars’s surface, causing warm air to rise and spin into vortices. Colder air rushes inward along the ground, stretching the rising column upward and whipping dust high into the sky. Because Mars has lower gravity and a thinner atmosphere than Earth, its dust devils can tower much higher, three times larger than storms on Earth. NASA’s Viking mission first detected Martian dust devils; later rovers like Curiosity and Perseverance have filmed them sweeping across the dusty plains. These whirlwinds clean off solar panels – as happened with Spirit in 2005 – but more often they stir up fine dust that can coat instruments.

Electrification and Risks to Rovers

Dust grains in Martian whirlwinds can pick up charge through collisions (a triboelectric effect). Sheel’s models predict that this charge separation can create strong electric fields inside a dust devil. These fields could even exceed Mars’s atmospheric breakdown threshold (around 25 kV/m), enough to spark lightning in the vortex. NASA’s Perseverance rover recorded what appears to be a small triboelectric discharge when a dust devil passed overhead.

Even without lightning, any static buildup is problematic. As planetary scientist Yoav Yair notes, “Electrified dust will adhere to conducting surfaces such as wheels, solar panels and antennas,” potentially reducing sunlight reaching panels and jamming communications. Rovers may need new design features or procedures to handle this unusual Martian weather.

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