Future Technologies in focus
Our goal: Designing innovations to define the future and disrupt the present.
Unchartered technologies, the new frontier.
There is so much yet to discover. Drawing from past wisdom, our research is focused on deepening our understanding of science and nature. As futurists, our creative challenge is to design models that deliver long-term vision with present-day insight and technology.
The future is the playground of imagination – it's also a very real place. These abstract and alternative ideas enable us to venture into unchartered territory, and cast ourselves forward into the rapidly-evolving arenas of quantum computing, AGI, and regenerative infrastructure and economics. In our research, we walk a fine line between breakthrough and breakdown every day, seeking to disrupt the building blocks laid by past pioneers. There are no final frontiers, only better methodologies. What discovery will become the new methodology for future technologies?
UNSW-EC0 a cube satellite (CubeSat) was launched in 2016 to orbit earth at 320km altitude. The UNSW-EC0 carries an ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer instrument to study the composition of the thermosphere.
“What we’re doing now is something that my quantum mechanics lecturer told me could not be done 20 years ago. Now we do it every day."
This is one way in which our engineering ability to create devices like these and operate them on this level of precision has given us a window into the quantum world.
- Professor Andrea Morello, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications
Our areas of impact
- Quantum computing
- Bioengineering
- Nuclear energy
- Space mining
- Future food
- Smart materials
The world's first ever fusion energy device to be entirely designed, built and operated by students is currently underway at UNSW Sydney in 2024.
Student voices
“There are a lot of applications for quantum technologies, and that brings a lot of room for design. My work is in the area of hybrid-quantum systems as it links super-connecting and super-conducting quantum devices. My project is part of a growing field called Circuit QED which allows people to perform quantum optics experiments in solid-state devices.
The experiments I’m performing here at UNSW are pushing the frontiers of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy which is a major technique in other fields like chemistry, medicine and material science. There’s a lot happening in Sydney in quantum [research]. There’s four universities, small tech start-ups, and big industry players; it's fun because it feels like you’re part of a bigger team all working towards one big goal.”
- Wyatt Vine, Quantum Device Engineering UNSW PhD Student
Research centres & institutes
- Fundamental Quantum Technologies Laboratory
- UNSW AI Institute
- UNSW Digital Grid Futures Institutes
- CRC for Future Food Systems
Get in touch and see what’s possible.
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