The UK's third Quantum Hackathon – an annual event organised by the National Quantum Computing Centre – finished a few days ago. The event saw teams from a wide range of technical fields apply quantum computing to solve problems submitted by industry partners (including the North Wales Police who wanted help allocating police vehicles more efficiently).
It's so exciting that quantum computing has reached the stage where it can be applied to real-world problems to provide practical benefits. I'm used to hearing that quantum computing has amazing future promise, and it does, but personally I find it more interesting to see what can be done right now with what we have already.
I'm also interested to see that the Hackathon judges emphasised rigorous benchmarking as a key component in the winning team's submission. Quantum computers aren't simply “better” than classical computers, they're better suited to specific use cases, so finding the right problem and proving that quantum computers really can solve it more efficiently is key.
This year's results were fascinating to read about, and I wish the organisers even greater success in 2025!
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