Over the past 30 years, Queensland has built a reputation for being at the global frontier in science and advanced technologies, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology. Now, quantum technologies are emerging from Queensland laboratories, with the potential to deliver transformative benefits across a wide range of domains.
Queensland is renowned for its strong collaborative culture and cutting-edge infrastructure. Accessible, state-of-the-art scientific facilities are vital components of modern innovation ecosystems. The Team Queensland approach, supported by universities and the Queensland Government, fosters multidisciplinary collaboration and robust industry partnerships, delivering leading research outcomes and accelerating the development and commercialisation of ideas.
World leading quantum collaborative research programs
Queensland is at the centre of Australia’s quantum industry. Our universities host the headquarters of two of the four national, quantum-related Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres of Excellence and have a significant presence in the other two.
Queensland has industry-facing advanced fabrication and materials capabilities across five universities, including those at the Queensland node of the Australian National Fabrication Facility, which is essential to turn quantum-related intellectual property into engineered products.
Queensland also has significant strengths in the development and fabrication of compound semiconductors, superconductors, and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).
Headquartered in Queensland, EQUS – the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems, has 10 of its chief investigators in Queensland. EQUS specialises in quantum error correction, quantum computing architectures, characterising and modelling noise in quantum computing systems, quantum machine learning, integrated optics, e-beam lithography cryogenics (including dilution refrigerators), design and fabrications of superconducting devices, quantum optics, quantum sensing, and device packaging and testing.
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A researcher with photolithography equipment at the Griffith University’s Queensland Microtechnology Facility
Photo credit: © Griffith University
The ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC), led by The University of Queensland, is developing paradigm-shifting quantum technologies to observe biological processes. With six Queensland chief investigators and over 30 partnering research and industry organisations, the centre's research programs are focused on quantum-enabled neural imaging, quantum effects in biology, single protein dynamics and control and the development of multi-modal quantum microscopes to transform our understanding of how large-scale cellular behaviours emerge from the nanoscale dynamics of molecular machines.
The ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) has research nodes at Griffith University and The University of Queensland and three chief investigators. CQC2T undertakes research in quantum cryptography, scalable photonic quantum computing, quantum memories and quantum communications.
Queensland also has one chief investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technologies (FLEET), which brings together physicists, electrical engineers, chemists, and material scientists across seven Australian universities to develop ultra-low energy electronics to reduce energy use in information technology.
Network of research institutions and infrastructure
Accessible, state-of-the-art scientific infrastructure is a vital component of modern innovation ecosystems. It empowers academic and industry researchers, facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration, and accelerates the translation of discoveries into new businesses and jobs.
Queensland’s universities work together under the Queensland Major Research Infrastructure Alliance that ensures that the state’s major scientific facilities function as a shared resource.
The shared quantum-related facilities include those at:
- Queensland Micro- and Nano Technology Centre
- Centre for Materials Science
- Applied Superconductivity Laboratory
- Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics
- Nodes of the Australian National Fabrication Facility at Griffith University and The University of Queensland
- Central Analytic Research Facility
- Australian Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology
- Institute for Advanced Engineering and Space Sciences
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Queensland offers an extensive network of translational infrastructure across different sectors to support the development and commercialisation of novel technologies into industry.
Track record of producing global quantum leaders
Queensland produces global quantum leaders:
- Professor Gerard Milburn made the first proposal for a quantum gate in 1989 and is widely considered the founder of optical quantum computing
- Professor Andrew White demonstrated the first entangling quantum-logic gate in 2003
- Professor Howard Wiseman is one of the founders of quantum control
- Industry founders and leaders of quantum computing at Xanadu, PsiQuantum and IBM.
Talent pipeline for quantum and advanced technology
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PhD student Larnii Booth and Prof Warwick Bowen with a Quantum Microscope at the ARC Centre of Excellence in Quantum Biotechnology (QUBIC) at the University of Queensland
Photo credit: © University of Queensland
The talent pipeline starts in our schools and can lead to a multitude of options for a rewarding career in Queensland quantum. Technicians, researchers, and industrialists all play pivotal roles in the development and advancement of quantum and advanced technologies. Queensland has a strong supply of quantum and advanced technologies training from school physics and engineering subjects to TAFE programs for technicians, and undergraduate to post-doctoral level in almost all fields of quantum-related technology.
Many of Queensland’s universities offer under- and post-graduate training in quantum related disciplines including quantum physics, lasers and photonics, micro-fabrication and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS), power systems and engineering and semiconductors such as the courses at Queensland University of Technology, University of Queensland, Griffith University and the University of Southern Queensland.
From their earliest years students in Queensland engage with STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) under the strategy for STEM in Queensland state schools and teachers access resources via the STEM Hub.