Quantum Week Scotland

Quantum Week Scotland 2024

QCS Hub member the University of Edinburgh and the National Quantum Computing Centre collaborated on Quantum Week Scotland, which took place between the 15th and 19th of April.  The week consisted of three major events: Quantum Computing Academic Industry Meeting day (AIMday®), a Quantum Computing Theory in Practice (QCTiP) workshop and the Quantum Software Lab’s first-anniversary celebration.  Quantum Week brought together more than 500 academics, researchers, and students with industry experts and government representatives.

The AIMday brought together academia and industry in open workshops to discuss problems of mutual interest. With a focus on quantum computing applications, the day addressed questions posed by more than ten end-users, with topics ranging from quantum machine learning to the integration of High Performance Computing with quantum, and with the QCS Hub User Engagement team having facilitated several sessions. The day will hopefully have led to an increased industry understanding and the opportunity for further meaningful collaboration.
 
Held over three days, QCTiP is one of the UK’s largest quantum computing conferences and dedicated to fostering dialogue between theorists and practitioners in the field. With presentations and healthy debate on topics such as the future of post-quantum cryptography, the impact of NISQ devices, and the importance of responsible innovation, the event was an invaluable forum for Hub and other quantum researchers to get together and discuss ideas.
 
Finally, the culmination of the week was the one-year anniversary of the Quantum Software Lab (QSL). Led by Professor Elham Kashefi, part of the QCS Hub Senior Science Team, the QSL is designed to act as a central node for quantum software development in the UK, and tackles the identification, development and validation real world use cases for quantum computing. The day showcased the range of projects the QSL has addressed in its first year, often involving or directly collaborating with Hub researchers, such as was seen with the Hub's recent blind quantum computing paper. The UK’s National Quantum Strategy Missions were also an important point of discussion, with a focus on how the QSL, the Hub, and the wider quantum ecosystem can contribute to the goal of having UK-based quantum computers capable of running 1 trillion operations by 2035.