The UK Quantum Technology Showcase

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• November 26, 2015
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An extraordinary event took place for the first time in the UK a couple of weeks ago: the UK National Quantum Technology Showcase 2015. According to the official announcement, this was “a unique opportunity to meet the four UK Quantum Technology Hubs – a consortium of 17 UK universities, and find out about the latest advances in imaging, sensing, metrology, secure communication and computing.”

In practice, around 300 people from business, industry and of course the university sector met in the halls of the Royal Society in London to have a first glimpse at more or less commercially ready quantum technology emerging from the involved quantum labs.

Most of this technology was, apart from the Toshiba quantum key Distribution setup and our very own Heriot-Watt / Edinburgh University ultrafast single-photon camera presented by my colleague Jonathan Leach’s team, still in a very early stage of development. However, it was still exciting to see the momentum generated by this unique push to move quantum technology into the mainstream. The turnout was nothing less than impressive, almost 300 people showed up as you can see in this slightly blurry photo of Miles Padgett giving his address.

One of the key quotes that I took away from the event (by Prof David Kelpy, if I remember correctly) was that quantum technology needs to be demystified. “Spooky” action needs to turn into a more mundane language to lower the entry hurdles for the hundreds of engineers and others that will need to be trained to bring quantum technology to the markets within the decade. I agree. More than a century after the dawn of quantum mechanics it is time that we start treating this field of physics like any other, especially when communicating to the public. Hopefully, not too much of the wonder and excitement that we experience in our every day work will disappear in this process.