Funding Call: Feasibility Studies in Quantum Computing (UK)

Deadline: 29-Mar-23

Innovate UK is seeking applications for the Funding competition on Feasibility Studies in Quantum Computing to bring together end-users from many industry sectors, with experts in QC. They will identify and develop use cases in the UK that demonstrate the potential and commercial benefits of this technology.

Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation will invest up to £8 million in innovation projects. These will be for innovative solutions to industrial problems using quantum computing (QC) and explore the impact and feasibility of such applications.

The industry sectors are, but not limited to:

• manufacturing
• transport
• financial services.

Funding Information

• Your project must:
  • have total costs of up to £500,000
  • start by 1 September 2023
  • end by 28 February 2025
  • last up to 18 months
  • have one or more end users within the consortium
  • carry out its work in the UK
  • intend to exploit the results from or in the UK.

Activities

• The proposal must identify a commercial application of QC. It must address one or more of the following activities:
  • developing a use case with clear industrial applications
  • developing a novel quantum algorithm or apply an existing one for solving problems observed in industry
  • analysing the hardware and software requirements for solving industrial problems with quantum computers
  • benchmarking a quantum application solution on quantum hardware or on a quantum emulator
  • developing hardware tied to a particular application or set of applications.

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead Organisation
  • To lead a project your organisation must:
    • be a UK registered business of any size
    • collaborate with other UK registered organisations
• Project Team
  • To collaborate with the lead, your organisation must be one of the following UK registered:
    • business of any size
    • academic institution
    • charity
    • not for profit
    • public sector organisation
    • research and technology organisation (RTO)
  • Each partner organisation must be invited into the Innovation Funding Service by the lead to collaborate on a project. Once accepted, partners will be asked to login or to create an account and enter their own project costs into the Innovation Funding Service.
  • To be an eligible collaboration, the lead and at least one other organisation must apply for funding when entering their costs into the application.

Ineligible

• They are not funding projects that:
  • do not directly address a specific industrial problem or set of problems
  • do not specifically involve an application of quantum computing
  • seek to demonstrate the advantage of classic computing over quantum computing
• They cannot fund projects that are:
  • dependent on export performance, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it exports a certain quantity of bread to another country
  • dependent on domestic inputs usage, for example giving a subsidy to a baker on the condition that it uses 50% UK flour in their product.

For more information, visit Innovate UK.