NQCC's quantum hackathon 2024: Use case expressions of interest

Overview

The third annual UK Quantum Hackathon, delivered by the National Quantum Computing Centre, will take place at the University of Warwick from 22 to 24 July 2024. Teams of quantum developers (research students and early career researchers) are assigned a practical use case to solve on emulators and quantum hardware provided by one of a breadth of technology providers. The hackathon is part of the NQCC’s SparQ programme, aimed at exploring and raising awareness of the current capabilities and limitations of quantum computing technology, nurturing the talent pipeline, and convening stakeholders. Information on the 2023 hackathon can be found here.

This year, the NQCC is delighted to be running a competition to select the use cases that will be worked on during the hackathon to widen the opportunity to participate for end users. We welcome submissions from businesses and public sector, charitable and governmental organisations based in the UK.

Use cases are a statement of an industrially relevant problem, with a methodology and route to a solution that is suitable for being developed using a quantum computer, either real or emulated. For examples of previous use cases that teams have worked on at the NQCC's UK Quantum Hackathon, see our 2023 technical report. Suitable use cases are limited to non-defence applications and should not contain commercially sensitive intellectual property or involve information subject to GDPR.

The NQCC aims to have a diverse range of sectors, problem domains and organisations represented at the hackathon. These fields will therefore be considered when reviewing EOI submissions. Based on our review of the EOI submissions we will invite organisations to formally submit a use case to the full competition in early May. The full use case competition will close at the beginning of June.

The full use case submissions will be selected based on: 

• The quality of the proposal and suitability for the hackathon format (a three day event)
• The opportunity for advancing learning, including (desirable) beyond the close of the hackathon
• The potential for societal and economic benefit

Successful organisations will have the opportunity to work on their use case with a team of early career quantum developers at the event and to develop and test solutions on quantum computers. There will also be an option to continue developing the use case after the event. 

Please complete the Expression of Interest form via the link below to express your interest in submitting a use case to the competition and to request more information.

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