The coming quantum leap

Having turned the old capital of Hyderabad into Cyberabad, Andhra Pradesh CM Chandrababu Naidu is now building a quantum-computing hub in Amaravati, the new state capital. This could catapult India into the league of future tech powers, but there are challenges

- SHINE JACOB

An artist rendition of Andhra Pradesh's vision for the new state capital, Amaravati

(IMAGE: STATE GOVERNMENT)

Way back in 1997, when Microsoft founder Bill Gates was on a visit to New Delhi, his team received an unusual request for a meeting — from the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, N Chandrababu Naidu. In those days, it was unusual for Indian states to pitch investment opportunities to global business leaders. In the event, a meeting scheduled for 10 minutes got extended to 40. Gates was impressed.

“You are a politician, you make a better presentation than people in my team,” Gates told Naidu, before establishing Microsoft's first development centre outside the US in Hyderabad, which was then the capital of undivided Andhra Pradesh, in 1998. The move transformed Hyderabad into modern-day Cyberabad.

Twenty-eight years on, Naidu is chief minister for the fourth time, but Hyderabad is now the capital of Telangana, which was carved out of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. Never mind — Naidu, 75, is scripting yet another future-tech story for the new capital city of Amaravati with his ambitious Quantum Valley project.

If all goes well, says the state industries ministry, the Amaravati Quantum Valley (AQV) project, developed by IBM, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) and Larsen & Toubro (L&T), along with the state government, is set to be launched as early as in January 2026. It will manufacture India’s first quantum computers and export them within two years’ time according to Naidu. The project will drive innovations in the sector and is expected to attract investments of $1 billion by 2029.