Abstract
In developing world-class disciplines, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has made swift progress in the field of quantum information, which is an all-new and non-mainstream discipline in physics. From a cultural perspective, this paper analyses the construction of the academic–research–production–application chain of USTC's quantum information discipline. It also explores the values and implementation schemes adopted in the development of a leading and open scientific research platform and a high-calibre research team. Based on the analysis, it summarizes the features of scientific culture in this discipline, such as an emphasis on basic education, the integration of research institutes with teaching departments, inclusiveness to cater for various interests, and persistence in serving the country through science.
Keywords
Introduction
In 2017, after years of preparation, China officially initiated a programme of world-class universities and world-class disciplines (the ‘double first-class’ initiative) in a bid to enhance the influence of Chinese universities in the wider world. According to Essential Science Indicators, which is an academic assessment instrument developed by Thomson Reuters, the number of citations in the physics papers of Tsinghua University, Peking University and the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) reached 161,578, 153,573 and 150,857, respectively, in the period from July 2012 to September 2018. Their rankings are far above those of other universities in China and close to the world's highest. Meanwhile, China has moved from being a follower in some fields of physics to being a leader. The rise of emerging research fields such as quantum physics and quantum information is an important factor that has led to the rapid development of this competitive edge. There is no doubt that USTC leads in the quantum information discipline in China. Its academic–research–production–application chain of quantum communications, in particular, has earned USTC its reputation.
At USTC and elsewhere in China, an important starting point in quantum physics has been quantum optics. In 1981, when Guo Guangcan, who was then a teacher at the Department of Physics of USTC, visited the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto as a visiting scholar, he sighed:
Only after I had arrived, did I find the university already had a mature theoretical framework of quantum optics. Alas! China has paid little attention to this field and is almost 20 years behind the international forefront. (Hao, 2012)
In 2018, only 37 years after Guo uttered that sigh, USTC has attained a competitive edge in the development of the whole academic–research–production–application chain of quantum communications, which has amazed fellow researchers at the international forefront and earned their recognition. Consider, for example, the research team led by Pan Jianwei. Pan has received many awards in quantum communications, including the Fresnel Prize, the Quantum Communication Award and the Willis E. Lamb Award for Laser Science and Quantum Optics. Chen Yuao and Lu Zhaoyang, who are on Pan's team, also won the Fresnel Prize in 2013 and 2017, respectively. Chen won the award when he was only 32 years old.
Based on an analysis of the values and mechanism of USTC's scientific culture, this paper examines the key factors in the rapid development of and later boom in quantum information (especially quantum communications and some areas of quantum computing) at the university.
The activation of cultural elements and the choice of a development pathway
Culture is the basis for the development of civilization and institutional innovation, and scientific culture is a form of and an important factor in culture. From the perspective of cultural construction, scientific culture usually refers to a set of values, behavioural patterns and systems created or inherited by the scientific community in the course of scientific research and science communication, and recognized and followed by the public (Wang and Zheng, 2018).
The scientific practice revealed by scientific culture involves not only research based on discipline classifications, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, astronomy, geography and biology, but also metaphysical factors such as scientific spirit, values and ethics and the selection of development pathways (Jia, 2015; Liu and Chen, 2018).
As a national-level flagship university administered by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), USTC focuses on frontier science and high technology while including unique management and liberal arts courses. USTC was founded in Beijing in September 1958 and moved to Hefei, Anhui Province, in early 1970. During the 60 years since its establishment, it has followed the principle of ‘running the university by the whole academy and integrating institutes and departments’, and the motto of ‘being responsible and professional and combining theory with practice’. It has been committed to training talent by setting up departments according to China's pressing needs for technology and by integrating frontier science with frontier technology. USTC attaches great importance to basic courses and advocates freshmen's engagement in frontier research projects. It has sought to train top scientific personnel specializing in emerging, marginal and interdisciplinary subjects, emphasizing a high-level starting point for students and broad scope of their knowledge. USTC has created a unique pathway of development highlighting ‘high-quality education and top talent training’, fostering a scientific culture with distinctive USTC features (Jiang, 2015).
USTC's stance and attitude: A story of making rational choices
USTC's successes have been based on its defence of high-quality education and rational choices about its own development.
Persisting in high-quality education despite larger enrolments
In the late 1990s, the Ministry of Education promoted increased university enrolments. Most of China's universities answered the call and embraced the market to start increasing enrolments. However, this unusual mode of development soon resulted in high student to faculty ratios and a shortage of teachers and experimental resources. Moreover, the shortage of faculty in certain disciplines was growing serious, especially in basic and general courses that all students were required to take. There was also a lack of instructors for specialized experiments and training, so super-packed classes and simplified experiments became usual. In order to offer enough courses, many universities began to use newly graduated teachers without any systematic and professional training, or teachers whose expertise did not match the courses. This led to worsening teaching quality.
Counter to the mainstream, however, USTC persisted in its goal of producing top scientific talent for the country, becoming the only university that has never increased its undergraduate enrolment. During the past 20 years, it has held its annual undergraduate enrolment at 1,860. According to USTC's ethos, only when each student is guaranteed adequate and excellent learning resources can the university ensure the high quality of its graduates.
The results of USTC's persistence can be quantified:
According to data published by Wu Shulian on Chinese university graduates’ quality and faculty members’ average academic level, USTC ranked first for both among universities on the Chinese mainland in 2016 and 2017; it ranked third in terms of the quality of employment of undergraduates in 2018, scoring only 0.0093 lower than the top scorer, Tsinghua University.
Thomson Reuters released data identifying the world's top 100 materials scientists in 2018. Among the 15 Chinese scientists on the list, 10 finished their undergraduate study in universities on the Chinese mainland, and seven of them were from USTC (they ranked 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 20th and 43rd).
Former USTC president Zhu Qingshi was a representative opponent of the enrolment expansion initiative when it was proposed. He later argued that:
I hope USTC will adhere to its founding principles and guidelines, which it has been following for 50 years. It can be expected that USTC will remain one of the leading universities in China long into the future. Moreover, USTC cannot be compared to the plateau-based Himalayas, any point of which is very high. It should be another Yellow Mountain of Anhui Province, which means we don't need to be the best in all fields, yet we should have our own features in some areas and be the best in those areas. (as cited in Wang, 2008)
In our view, Zhu means that each university should have its own ethos and mode of development, with varied styles and expectations. What makes one university successful might not be suitable for others. Rational choice will always be a cornerstone for developing a strategy and a unique development pathway.
USTC's persistence in high-quality education under the principle of rational choice has allowed it to achieve much:
Since 2014, USTC has won more than 10 national-level scientific awards, including two first prizes and five second prizes for natural science projects conducted independently or jointly with others. USTC ranks the first in first prizes among all the Chinese universities.
Two breakthroughs (in quantum communications and high-temperature superconductors and nanomaterials) have been listed in the ‘12th five-year plan’ for major scientific achievements and milestone progress (in the top 20). The breakthrough in quantum control has been listed in the ‘12th five-year plan’ for major scientific achievements in fundamental frontier areas (as one of three in China).
Since its establishment, USTC has produced 48 CAS academicians, 21 academicians of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and 28 fellows of other famous institutes worldwide. This is the highest such achievement of any Chinese university.
According to the fourth discipline assessment by the China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Centre under the Ministry of Education, released on 28 December 2017, USTC achieved seven ‘A+’ scores among the 28 disciplines assessed, ranking fifth in China despite its relatively smaller number of disciplines.
USTC is at the forefront of innovation and has many newly developed disciplines, such as fire science and quantum science. Although few people understand the need to set up such disciplines, USTC continues to encourage the exploration of scientific frontiers and maintains an inclusive attitude towards excellent and original research. The development of the quantum discipline at USTC from a very low starting point to a peak shows that the university has made a rational and wise choice when considering which disciplines to develop. The new discipline has been cultivated by breaking barriers of traditional norms and pooling the maximum resources. This has made it possible to produce a group of eminent quantum scientists, including Guo Guangcan, Pan Jianwei, Du Jiangfeng, Lu Zhaoyang, Chen Yuao and others.
In 1978, China's ‘reform and opening-up’ policy and the National Science Conference inspired people's enthusiasm for science. Guo Guangcan, a lecturer in the Department of Physics (now a CAS academician), developed the molecular nitrogen laser, which was an instrument of important industrial value. However, he suffered setbacks in translating his experimental results into industrial applications due to a shortage of government funds for scientific research. He then shifted from experimental research to quantum optics, which interested few researchers in China. This was an important turning point in his academic career.
At that time, most researchers in China held a negative attitude towards quantum optics, believing that classical theories were good enough to solve optical problems and that quantum optics did not seem to have good prospects or possibilities for theoretical research. According to academician Hou Jianguo, a former USTC president, it was almost impossible for Guo, who was teaching Hou at that time, to develop quantum optics under the four classical arms of physics. However, Guo was determined to stick to his choice and to follow his interest.
He went to the University of Toronto to study quantum optics in 1981. After he returned to China, Guo immediately dedicated himself to the development of the field. In 1984, with funding of 2,000 yuan from USTC, he hosted the first quantum optics conference at the Zuiweng Pavilion of Langya Mountain, which had been described by Ouyang Xiu, a literary master in the Song Dynasty. The conference has been continued in the 34 years since then. On the basis of the conference, he later founded the Committee on Quantum Optics. Largely because of his commitment to this academic activity, China's quantum optics research team has grown bigger and stronger, and the discipline has developed rapidly.
Guo was the first to offer a quantum optics course in China, and his lecture notes were published in 1991. His enlightening book was the only classic textbook in the early days of the discipline and laid a solid foundation for its future development.
Innovation and cross-field innovation and creation have become mainsprings of science and technology (S&T) and industrial development. In this context, the international competition for scientific talent and the flow of talent triggered by that competition are unavoidable. As an emerging scientific power, China is growing stronger and has the ability and chances to compete against leading countries in attracting scientific talent.
Because research in quantum science calls for the integration of cutting-edge theories in multiple disciplines, talented people from various backgrounds are needed to make breakthroughs. Pan Jianwei's research team is an example: the most important team members are mostly around 30 years old. The team has one person on the list of the 1,000 Talent Programme launched by the Department of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, and 11 on the lists of the 1,000 Young Talent Programme launched by the department, CAS's Hundred Talent Programme and the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars.
Pan firmly believed that quantum information would become a leading research field. He returned from Austria to China in 2001 and began to develop a talent training strategy. He sent selected students to study abroad in the world's leading research groups on quantum information in order to form a research team with distinctive but complementary features when they returned. After finishing their studies and returning to China, those people became competent researchers, which led to the growth of Pan's team. For example, after completing undergraduate studies, Lu Zhaoyang was directly admitted to the National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, doing research on optical quantum information under his adviser, Pan. With the help of Pan, Lu won a full scholarship for study at the University of Cambridge in 2008, specializing in solid-state quantum optics in Cavendish Laboratory. Within three years, he finished his PhD programme at Cambridge. Meanwhile, he was also accepted as a young researcher at the Churchill Institute of Cambridge (fewer than 1% of those who applied were accepted). There are also many other top talents like Lu, including Chen Yuao, Chen Tengyun, Bao Xiaohui, Zhao Bo, Yin Juan and others.
Thanks to the scholars’ individual commitment and the university's inclusive attitude towards scholars, what was once the least popular discipline has developed quickly, gained early success and grown into a productive research platform for frontier science in China.
Focusing on talent training with continuous innovation
USTC has achieved much by inspiring students and researchers, by following its special traditions and by integrating research with teaching.
Allowing young researchers to follow their interests so as to inspire potential
In its educational philosophy, USTC echoes China's most famous ancient educator, Confucius. The university offers student-oriented education through small classes and special instruction according to students’ aptitudes. For example, USTC respects personal interests, individuality, strengths and potential, and offers small-sized academic programmes (Ding, 2018).
Since 2002, all students have been allowed to choose their specialties based on their interests. They have two chances to switch to other departments, and their original departments do not interfere in their new choices. This is a first-ever move in Chinese universities. USTC set up a centre for career guidance in 2012 to provide tailored training programmes for students who wish to change their majors but have been refused by their target departments. It aims to meet all students’ needs for independent specialty selection.
Table 1 shows that many undergraduates enrolled in 2016 prefer applied sciences, such as computer science, information science and management. However, the ratios of the current number of students to the original number of students at the schools of Physical Sciences and Mathematical Sciences rank fourth and fifth, respectively, which demonstrates that undergraduates still have a strong interest in physics and mathematics.
Independent selection of specialties by undergraduates enrolled in 2016
Independent selection of specialties by undergraduates enrolled in 2016
In 2016, among the 33 graduates who won the university's highest award, the Guo Moruo Scholarship, five once changed their majors. This means that changing majors will not stop students from winning the highest honours; rather, independent selection of specialties helps to arouse students’ interest in academic study and achieve better results.
USTC has remained committed to training top talent in S&T. While emphasizing a solid foundation in mathematics and physics, the university also values the cultivation of abilities relating to innovative practice. Teaching through experiments and practice is an important part of its educational reforms. To train the abilities of undergraduates in scientific research, USTC has launched a range of research and innovation programmes, through which students have achieved good results. For example, they have improved their abilities in research and developed an awareness of innovation and team spirit.
From Table 2, we see that USTC launched a total of 885 research and innovation programmes for students in 2017, covering a wide range of disciplines. Specifically, 86 programmes were conducted outside the university, such as in CAS institutes, while 347 were conducted in schools or departments of the university.
USTC student research and innovation programmes in 2017
USTC boasts a tradition of respecting senior scholars, but without any practice of promotion by seniority or unfair competition among different academic schools. Since the university was founded, the older generation of scientists has followed USTC's ‘harmony in diversity’ ethos in teaching and research. For example, all of the three professors in the Department of Mathematics (Hua Luogeng, Guan Zhaozhi and Wu Wenjun) offered the Introduction to Advanced Mathematics course. They took turns to give lectures in their own styles. This demonstrated a state of harmony in diversity and has been immensely appreciated throughout the university.
In the early stage of his research in quantum optics, Guo Guangcan was not truly recognized by his fellow researchers. Some believed that quantum optics was a pseudoscience, and gaining funding from the government seemed impossible.
Then, in 1999, he won the support of Lu Yongxiang, then the CAS president, and received funding of 50,000 yuan from CAS's Bureau of High Technology Development. The bureau also suggested founding a laboratory, for which it would provide long-term support. This was the first formal funding that Guo had received as the founder of USTC's quantum information discipline. Later, he set up a key laboratory for quantum information. One year later, the lab was assessed as a key lab of CAS and turned out to rank first among all candidates.
Guo had been applying for the National Basic Research Programme of China (the 973 Programme) since 1997, jointly with other universities and institutes. After four years of effort, the first 973 Programme of quantum communications and quantum information technology was approved in 2001. Just as for quantum optics, Guo hoped that the study of quantum information would progress through efforts across China. Therefore, he called on more than 50 scientists from more than 10 research organizations to join in the programme. Labs were set up, and the research field was broadened to include quantum cryptography, quantum computers, quantum communications and quantum networks. Later, eight of the researchers in the programme became academicians. In both quantum optics and quantum information, Guo, who was once believed to ignore his duties, provided the primary driving force at the initial stage.
The institute–department integration model: Past and present
Under the institute–department integration model, USTC is run by the whole of CAS and research institutes are integrated with teaching departments. Guo Moruo, the first president of USTC, noted when he proposed the establishment of the university, ‘We should make good use of all the best resources of all CAS institutes in a bid to make the university a success in training talents’ (as cited in Zhang et al., 2015). As a special arrangement and as part of the initial design, the most representative scientific personnel of high-level CAS institutes would be involved in USTC's training of top talent. In this way, the institute– department integration model, which combined research and education, became the initial tradition in talent training.
During the university's early years, when it was based in Beijing, USTC departments and CAS institutes were so closely integrated that all work relating to the departments, including the development of teaching resources, professional training, equipment construction, the opening of experiment and practice platforms, and the design of the teaching system and academic programmes, was hosted or assisted by corresponding institutes. After USTC was relocated to Hefei, Anhui Province, more than a hundred high-level CAS institutes were used as bases for research and practice for USTC students. USTC and CAS institutes launched the new model of joint colleges integrating research and education (Zhang et al., 2015). USTC was in charge of the postgraduate programmes in joint colleges, unifying postgraduate admission, training, administration and awards of degrees and deepening the integration of advisers, disciplines and research platforms.
By the end of August 2017, USTC had established all-round cooperation with the 12 arms and 25 institutes of CAS, setting up 22 joint labs. Meanwhile, the university jointly set up bases for students’ practice with more than 40 institutes, forming a ‘research– teaching alliance’ that integrated talent training, discipline construction and scientific research. For example, Han Jinheng, who was enrolled in the School of Information Science and Technology in 2015, applied for internship at the Institute of Optics and Electronics in Chengdu during his second winter vacation. Through practice, he gained a deeper understanding of urgent challenges in quantum communications and decided to continue his study and research in that field.
Figure 1 shows USTC undergraduates’ practice at CAS institutes from 2004 to 2016. A large number of students served as interns, and that figure will keep growing.
In view of China's developing needs, USTC has launched multidisciplinary programmes for top scientific talent as a new strategy by further integrating institutes and departments. Since 2009, USTC has partnered with 18 CAS institutes (such as the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science and the Institute of Physics) to offer 14 programmes for top scientific talent, including seven for fundamental sciences, such as the Hua Luogeng mathematics programme and the Yan Jici physics programme, and another seven for high-technology, such as the Zhao Zhongyao applied physics programme.
Practice of USTC undergraduates at CAS institutes, 2004 to 2016.
In October 2010, five programmes were accepted into the ‘trial programme for top students in fundamental disciplines’: the Hua Luogeng mathematics programme, the Yan Jici physics programme, the Lu Jiaxi chemistry programme, the Bei Shizhang life sciences programme and the computer science programme. By the end of August 2017, the five programmes had enrolled 1,408 students, of whom 820 had graduated and 588 were still studying. Of the graduates, 787 (96%) pursued further study, including 96% of the graduates from the Yan Jici physics programme. For example, of all the 49 students in that programme in 2017, 37 (76%) went to the world's leading universities for further study, including Stanford University, the California Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania. Those figures reflect the achievements of USTC's programmes for top talent.
In recent years, the rapid emergence of quantum information technology has become a strategic development trend supported by many countries (Losee, 1997). With further development in this field, some quantum technologies have entered into a critical stage of industrialization and system integration. Therefore, an all-round reform of mechanisms and institutional systems is needed in order to gain complementary advantages and make breakthroughs through cooperation. In this way, we can embark on a new pathway of leapfrog development, laying a foundation for China to become a leader in the quantum S&T revolution in the future.
In this context, USTC has partnered with other universities and institutes to set up the Synergetic Innovation Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Science. The partners include Nanjing University, CAS's Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, CAS's Institute of Semiconductors and the National University of Defense Technology. Through cooperation with those universities and institutes, USTC can fully play its unique role in developing S&T and providing talent.
As a centre of innovation, USTC carries out fundamental research in S&T. Following the principle of ‘having limited targets, making critical breakthroughs’, the university conducts systematic fundamental research in frontier S&T with a focus on several physics systems that have the potential for expandable quantum information processing. It also aims to develop new interdisciplinary research fields relating to the discipline. The collaborating partners are responsible for providing technical support and working together with USTC in translating research results into technologies. For example, the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics has developed and produced the main body of the first quantum communication satellite (nicknamed Micius).
By integrating institutes and departments, USTC has made full use of the strengths of CAS's knowledge and role as a platform, allowing students to combine theory with practice. In particular, this model allows top students to be able to work together with scientists as early as possible, so they can have opportunities to be involved in frontier scientific research and experience both the processes and the attraction of research. By allowing undergraduates to work on research projects in research institutes, USTC can not only enhance the research abilities of those students, but also pave the way for them to go directly to the institutes in the future.
At the end of 1969, the Zhenbao Island conflict between China and the Soviet Union made the relationship between the two countries highly tense, and it seemed that a war might start at any moment. To protect the scientists and disciplines relating to the Two Bombs and One Satellite programme, the Chinese Government decided to move USTC to the south. The then head of Anhui Province, General Li Desheng, who had great foresight, proposed that the university move to Hefei in that province. With great efficiency, the university was moved to the sites of what were then Hefei Normal University and the Anhui School of Banking Cadres, using their classrooms and dorms.
Due to poor transportation in Hefei and the city's small population and low level of economic growth, USTC was at a geographical disadvantage. However, the quietness and low mobility also brought chances for the development of a much-needed teaching and research atmosphere (Xiong, 2018). Admittedly, being far away from the centre of news, politics and the economy, USTC missed many opportunities to gain popularity, but its inherent potential to graduate students who would merit the attention of the whole world was strengthened.
When USTC first moved to Hefei, it seemed that the university would have nothing to do with the small rural city, as the university had been enjoying great prestige for its frontier scientific research and science education. In the eyes of people in Hefei and other less developed places in Anhui, USTC had little to do with everyday life in the province, except that a couple of top local students might be able to study there. It seemed that the university was more used to communicating with people in the United States, Japan and Europe, and in cities such as Beijing; it had never become a part of Anhui. From the 1970s to the 1990s, the biggest value of USTC for Anhui people was its ‘brand’ as a frontier science and science education centre. It seemed merely to nestle in the city, wearing a mysterious veil and appearing sacred.
As time passed, the culture of USTC, including its principle of being generous, bold, committed and innovative, gradually integrated with the culture of Hefei. In 2004, with national research institutions including USTC and CAS's Hefei Institute of Physical Science, Hefei filed a bold application to be China's first pilot city of S&T innovation. The application was approved, pushing the city to advance and promote the idea of ‘starting from scratch’. Hefei, which used to follow suit with other provincial capitals, began to follow USTC's approach of aiming for frontier industries and technologies for greater development. At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Hefei defined its brand as ‘a city boasting the advantages of the Chao Lake and a height of innovation’. It aims to become a home to overseas talent by the end of the second decade, with booming high technology and manufacturing that merit the world's attention.
In June 2017, the Chinese Government approved three comprehensive national science centres that aim at international scientific frontiers: Zhangjiang Comprehensive National Science Centre in Shanghai, Hefei Comprehensive National Science Centre in Anhui, and Huairou Comprehensive National Science Centre in Beijing. Four centres are planned, and the fact that Hefei is listed as the second one has surprised China and the world. The mission of the Hefei science centre is to conduct interdisciplinary research focusing on the fields of information, energy, health and the environment; to promote innovative technologies and emerging industries; and to develop into a basic platform of the national innovation system, a centre for scientific research, a source of economic growth, and a pioneer in innovation-driven development.
National laboratories and large scientific facilities make up the core of the Hefei science centre. Hefei has three such facilities, involving synchrotron radiation, a fully superconducting tokamak and steady high magnetic fields. It is the second largest centre for such facilities (the largest is Beijing). As well as upgrading existing facilities, Hefei has constructed new ones, including a main fusion reactor, an all-round probe of the atmospheric environment, and a fourth-generation synchrotron radiation light source. This has allowed the centre to produce a collective research effect of ‘1 + 1 > 2’. Most of the facilities are owned by USTC and the Hefei Institute of Physical Science—two organizations of CAS.
In 2018, leveraging these facilities, Hefei planned to build new types of research platforms, such as a national laboratory for quantum information science, a megagene centre and an ionic medical centre. The mission of those platforms is to conduct research in important research areas, including national information security, nuclear fusion energy, the prevention and control of air pollution, and cancer treatment. The aim is to make pioneering breakthroughs in the international S&T competition.
At present, the quantum information industry is still in the preliminary stage of development (Dowling and Milburn, 2003; Huang, et al., 2013), while USTC has become one of the world's leading institutions in this field. Thanks to the university's pioneering work, it is very likely that China will surpass competitors in the field.
USTC has been committed to serving the country through S&T and making bold explorations. It has founded four high-technology enterprises of quantum information (Table 3), which help to translate research results into applications and promote industrial production.
Quantum companies with USTC as a shareholder
Quantum companies with USTC as a shareholder
Examples of USTC's achievements are as follows:
In 2005, the research team led by Guo Guangcan realized 125 kilometres of unidirectional quantum key distribution between Beijing and Tianjin by using commercial optical communication.
In 2009, the research team led by Pan Jianwei succeeded in constructing the world's first optical quantum telephone network in Hefei, and the research team led by Guo Guangcan constructed the quantum network for government affairs in Wuhu.
In 2010, Pan Jianwei's team constructed the world's first all-pass quantum communication network in Hefei.
In 2014, the experimental network for quantum communication in Ji'nan was put into operation (Yan, 2017).
On 16 August 2016, China's Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre launched Micius, the world's first quantum science experimental satellite.
In 2016, the world's first quantum encrypted communication network—the 2,000-kilometre Beijing–Shanghai network, which passes through many other cities—was completed. It aims at encrypted transmission of important information (Gao, 2017).
On 18 January 2017, Micius was delivered for scientific experiment. It achieved its three targets as planned, with satisfactory results in August. The research has been published online in the world's leading academic journal, Nature.
The national laboratory for quantum information science is the no. 1 project undertaken by USTC under the partnership between Anhui Province and CAS. As one of the major frontier science projects strongly supported by the Chinese Government, it has been included in Anhui's 2017 Key Projects Investment Plan. Upon completion, it will focus on making breakthroughs in frontier science and core technologies relating to quantum information during the ‘second quantum revolution’, with the aim of addressing the needs of national information security and enhancing computing capability. It will also promote the development of new strategic industries relating to quantum communication and strive for a leading position in international competition and the future development of quantum S&T (Devoret and Schoelkopf, 2013; Chiang et al., 2012).
USTC's Institute of Advanced Technology serves as a research results application platform, and its hi-tech campus is a platform for frontier technology development and talent training. The national laboratory for quantum information science will collaborate with those two institutions to make the Hefei National Hi-tech Industry Development Zone an important centre for quantum information that integrates industry, teaching, research and application.
Among all the enterprises dealing with quantum science, one can always find USTC graduates, either as founders or as core technical personnel. There are four such enterprises in which USTC is a shareholder (Table 3). Based on these achievements, the university's quantum information system in Hefei has already taken shape. The goal is to become a frontier research centre for quantum information, a platform for talent training that attracts the largest number of researchers, and a platform for the development of industries and intellectual property.
USTC was founded to promote the development of China's Two Bombs and One Satellite programme and has remained committed to its founding values and education ethos: focusing on the world's scientific frontier, serving the nation's major needs, being a model of morality and education, and pursuing breakthroughs and innovations. This year marks its 60th anniversary. It has made great contributions to the nation in its fundamental work on science and education and in its strategic work on national development, and has become a leading university with Chinese features and cultural traditions.
At the intersection of quantum mechanics and informatics, the quantum information discipline is one of the strongest disciplines at USTC. Due to its potential for application and great scientific significance, the discipline is receiving more and more attention from all over the world as an emerging discipline that has grown rapidly in the past 10 years or so. USTC has developed an academics–research–production–application chain in the field. In its design of guiding principles and its practice of innovative research in developing the new discipline, USTC serves as a good example with unique cultural values that provide guidance for other Chinese universities in developing world-class disciplines.
Footnotes
Author biographies
Bin Zheng is a PhD candidate majoring in the philosophy of S&T at USTC. He gained a bachelor's degree in materials science and engineering from Zhejiang University in 2015.
Shukun Tang is Professor of the Department of Science Communication and Scientific Policy and Director of the Research and Development Centre for Science Communication, USTC. He also serves as the vice chairman of the China Science Writers Association. His expertise includes science communication, science policy and cultural philosophy.
Qiong Fan is the Director of the International News Office and a PhD candidate majoring in science communication at USTC. Fan's research areas include scientific policy and industry ecosystems in the field of quantum information.