Skip to content

Search the site

UK quantum computer cluster opens on site of Cold War atomic "holy of holies"

Site of top-secret nuclear facility will house a dozen machines and may even let the public have a go - if they have a "valid use case".

The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority which, unlike famous American nuclear research labs, was very much not built in a desert (Image: Science and Technology Facilities Council)

The UK has launched a new research lab called the National Quantum Computing Centre on the site of a top-secret Cold War atomic research base.

The 4,000 square meter facility in Harwell, Oxfordshire, will be home to 12 quantum computers "designed to push the boundaries of what is possible with this emerging technology".

It lives in the Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, which was once home to a United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority research base that played a key role in a famous episode in the hidden history of Cold War espionage.

Despite the site's secret squirrel past, the National Quantum Computing Centre systems will not be kept under lock and key to be used only by the intelligence services. Anyone "with a valid use case" will be able to "harness its cutting-edge capabilities".

Industry, academia, and other sectors across the UK will have access to the devices and more than 70 staff will be based at the facility. The Centre will also host the world’s first dedicated quantum apprenticeship programme and 30 PhD studentships.

"By fostering collaboration and innovation, the NQCC is set to become a key driver of quantum breakthroughs, delivering transformative benefits for both the public and private sectors," the government announced.

Lord Vallance, Science Minister, said: "The National Quantum Computing Centre marks a vital step forward in the UK’s efforts to advance quantum technologies. By making its facilities available to users from across industry and academia, and with its focus on making quantum computers practically useable at scale, this Centre will help them solve some of the biggest challenges we face.

"The innovations that will emerge from the work the NQCC will do will ultimately improve lives across the country and ensure the UK seizes the economic benefits of its leadership in quantum technologies."

Officials made four suggestions for the possible uses of quantum computers: energy grid optimisation, faster drug discovery, weather forecasting (very British) and "advances in AI".

Researchers in the UK are already using quantum computers to build neural (networks that process data in a similar way to the human brain) to detect fraud and are "building the foundations" of a "quantum internet that will pool the colossal power of quantum computers from across the globe", the government said.

It described quantum computing as follows: "Quantum computing works in a completely different way from the computers we use every day. Ordinary computers process information in a series of simple steps, where everything is broken down into tiny chunks of digital data that represent ‘1’ and ‘0’ or ‘on’ and ‘off’.

"By manipulating these bits of data over and over again, we can perform calculations and solve problems, but solving complex problems is both energy-intensive and takes a lot of time.

"By contrast, quantum computers allow quantum information to be represented in multiple states at once - meaning it can be both ‘on’ and ‘off’ at the same time, allowing them to tackle complex problems in much less time.

"This means they have the potential to solve complex computational problems in seconds, minutes, or hours—tasks that would take today’s supercomputers years, decades, or even millennia, if they could solve them at all."

Klaus Fuchs (Image: MI5)

The man in the picture above used to work at the Harwell Campus, which housed the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, a facility created and funded by Westminster. Emil Klaus Fuchs worked on developing nuclear energy at the base after World War II.

At this highly secretive lab, Britain created its first nuclear reactors and carried out the bulk of its atomic research between 1946 and the 1990s - the entire lifespan of the Cold War from the early days of the nuclear age to the fall of Soviet Communism.

On August 15, 1947, GLEEP, the Graphite Low Energy Experimental Pile, was the first nuclear reactor switched on in Western Europe.

"The establishment's importance and secrecy was such that it was nicknamed 'the holy of holies,'" MI5, Britain's domestic security agency, wrote in its biography of Fuchs.

Before he went to work at Harwell, the treacherous Fuchs had also been involved in leaking technical details of the atomic bomb designed in America's Manhattan Project to Russian spies.

Fuchs continued to pass on nuclear secrets to the Russians until he was caught in 1949 and jailed for 14 years. The story ends in East Germany where Fuchs lived until his death in 1988.

Will the story of the National Quantum Computing Centre be quite as eventful, we wonder?

Join peers following The Stack on LinkedIn

Latest