US-China tech war: school in eastern Anhui province offers country’s first PhD programme in quantum technology as global race to lead this field heats up

The University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), one of the country’s top public research institutes, is now offering the nation’s first doctoral degree programme in quantum science and technology, as a global race to lead in this field intensifies.

Its doctoral curriculum for quantum science and technology is among 54 new academic programmes approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet, last month. Other newly approved doctoral programmes include one for artificial intelligence at Peking University in Beijing and another for nuclear science and technology at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, capital of southern Guangdong province.

USTC’s new academic programme reflects the government’s focus on increasing the number of quantum researchers in the country, years after it designated Hefei as site of the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Science, touted as the world’s largest quantum technology research facility. In 2020, Chinese President Xi Jinping met some of the country’s top quantum physicists to tell them that the facility forms part of the national strategy, as the world undergoes “the biggest change in a century”.

Days after China’s top legislature approved in March the 14th five-year plan from 2021 to 2025, Xi highlighted the need for the country to become a “global centre for science and innovation”, including in quantum computing technology.