(Yicai Global) March 8 -- Baidu Inc., one of China's big three tech leaders, plans to set up a world-leading institute for quantum computing within five years and will carry out research into using the cutting-edge technology in its products.

Baidu has appointed Prof. Duan Runyao, director of the University of Technology Sydney's Centre for Quantum Software and Information, to lead the facility's development, the Beijing-based company said in a statement. He will report directly to Zhang Yaqin, president of Baidu.

China has already made significant advances in the field, with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. establishing the Alibaba Quantum Computing Laboratory in conjunction with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in 2015. The lab became the second institute globally to officially offer cloud-based quantum computing last month, following in the footsteps of US heavyweight International Business Machines Corp.

Quantum computers use high-speed parallel computing to conduct complex large-scale data processing based on quantum encryption technology and have the potential to be a game-changing mainstream technology in the future. Possible uses include better modeling of complex molecules compared with classical computers as well as advancing artificial intelligence.