To call it a heady week would be an understatement. After 15 years of research on how to build a super-fast quantum computer, University of NSW physicist Michelle Simmons was handed $46 million of funding in just one week to go ahead and build a prototype.

Both government and industry are backing the project which, if successful, could help Australia win one of the biggest races in science today - to build the world's first practical and commercialisable quantum computer. Quantum computing promises to revolutionise information technology with speeds millions of times faster than today's quickest machines.

"It was the busiest week of my life," said Professor Simmons of the days after December 7, when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced in his innovation statement that her project would get $26 million from the government. The following day Telstra and Commonwealth Bank said they would put in $10 million each.

UNSW physicist Michelle Simmons and Commonwealth Bank CIO David Whiteing at UNSW's quantum computer lab. Peter Braig

It was a flood of support for research that Simmons' Centre for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology started 15 years ago but which only in the last three years began notching up headline-grabbing achievements.

However Simmons wasn't in Australia to enjoy the moment. She was at the International Electron Devices Meeting in Washington DC, the world's main forum for computer hardware research, where she presented a plenary session. It also happened that the following week she needed to submit an application to the Australian Research Council for the next seven years funding for her research group. "I've worked a couple of all-nighters and I'm going on adrenalin," she said later in the week.