SHANGHAI, May 31 (Reuters) - China Telecom (0728.HK) has invested 3 billion yuan ($434 million) to establish the China Telecom Quantum Information Technology Group Co., it said in a statement on its official WeChat account Tuesday. The investment marks the latest move by a Chinese telecommunications giant to try to tap into quantum technology and reflects Beijing's ambition to pull ahead in the global race to harness the power of quantum computing. "[This] is a practical action to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on the development of quantum technology," China Telecom said in its statement. China Telecom's move comes after China Mobile, the world's largest telecom carrier with 900 million mobile subscribers, last December signed a deal with Chinese startup Origin Quantum looking to use quantum computing to overcome computational bottlenecks facing 5G and 6G technologies. Current real-world applications in quantum computing are still very basic and limited to a small group of clients.

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Persons: Xi, China Telecom's, Casey Hall, Sonali Paul Organizations: China Telecom, HK, China Telecom Quantum Information Technology, Co, China Mobile, Global, IDC, Thomson Locations: SHANGHAI, China, Anhui