Quantum technology is set for a boost in the U.K. with the Government investing  $188m (£120m) to set up four “Quantum Technology Hubs.”

The hubs, located at Universities in Birmingham, Glasgow, Oxford and York, aim to explore the properties of quantum mechanics and how it can be used to develop new technologies.

The hubs are have been divided into four separate specialities within the field:

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• Oxford: quantum computing and simulation
• York: quantum communications
• Glasgow: quantum sensing and imaging
• Birmingham: quantum sensing and metrology

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Private companies involved with the program include BT, Toshiba, e2v, M Squared Lasers, Dstl, AWE, the National Physical Laboratory, Thales, Coherent Lasers, BP, Compound Semiconductor, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Selex, Oxford Instruments and Kelvin Nanotechnology.

Peter Knight of the Imperial College London told physicsworld.com that the hubs”have clear development strategies for creating commercial technologies” and that he expected that the hubs will “deliver some technologies – such as sensors, clocks and quantum cryptography – within the first five years of the [program].”

The Glasgow hub will work to enable a range of new applications, including finding land mines, tracking magma moving under volcanoes and monitoring oil reserves to maximise extraction, according to a report from the BBC.

Professor Ian Walmsley told The Register that the Oxford hub “will use a novel network architecture, where building blocks such as trapped ions, superconducting circuits, or electron spins in solids, are linked up by photonic quantum interconnects.

U.K. Government Minister Greg Clark said that “This investment in quantum technologies has the potential to bring game-changing advantages to future timing, sensing and navigation capabilities that could support multi-billion pound markets in the U.K. and globally.”