pune the interuniversity centre for astronomy and astrophysics iucaa will build indias first optical atomic clock the accuracy level of the clock is so high that it may miss only one second over the entire age of the universe which is 138 billion years approximatelythe clock will be a part of the futuristic precision and quantum measurement laboratory pqmlab being established on the campus it will be useful for megascience initiatives such as laser interferometer gravitationalwave observatory ligoindia and in fundamental science research the department of science and technology launched quantum enabled science and technology quest in 2019 under which building a pqm lab led by iucaa associate professor subhadeep de was sanctioned we have got rs 10 crore funding from dst for the laboratory and the optical atomic clock which will take at least three years to build de said as the race to produce the first quantum computer or other quantum technologies becomes cutthroat india announced in budget 2020 a national mission on quantum technologies and applications with a total outlay of rs 8000 crore for five years to be implemented by the department of science and technologybut for any quantum technology to work it requires an ultraprecision optical atomic clock that can keep up with the quantum speed which is billions of times faster than classical computers currently the us canada france germany italy have an optical atomic clock japan has one and china is developing one we are planning to be the first in india moreover the technology outcomes from pqmlab will lead to the indigenous development of technology which can be only be imported de saidit will help in advanced astronomical instrumentation quantum communication meteorology megascience initiatives like ligoindia thirty meter telescope and researching questions of fundamental science such as gravity dark matter etc apart from supporting the national missions the technological outcomes from the pqmlab will lead to products that can be commercialised it will help india move towards techdriven economic growth by import substitution and selfreliance iucaa director somak raychaudhury saidthe project aims at training human resources so that when the age of quantum technology comes india is not short on skilled manpower