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XanaduAI / QHack2023

QHack 2023
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QHack is back with new challenges and prizes! Sign up for the event and get ready for the adventure! (2024)

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QHack Open Hackathon

Share your ideas with the quantum world at QHack's famous open hackathon!

This year's hackathon includes new sponsored challenges, each with unique prizes. You can submit your project to multiple prizes as long as it is eligible for them.

See below for challenge topics and additional eligibility criteria. Complete details for prize eligibility is available in the 2023 QHack Terms & Conditions.

How do I take part?

To submit your team's entry for any of these prizes, you should follow these steps:

  1. Create a repository with your project.

  2. Create an issue in this repository following this template.

  3. If you are applying for a power-up, indicate this by adding the PowerUp label to the issue you created in step 2 (alternatively, type [power-up] at the beginning of the issue name).

  4. If, on the other hand, you are submitting your work for the final project — not a power-up — you must add the Done label to the issue created in step 2 (alternatively, [Done]). If you submitted your work previously for a power-up, create a new issue for your final project submission — do not reuse the power-up submission.

In the template you will be asked to add a link to your repository. In this case, instead of sending a link to the main branch, you should send the link to the commit at that time. Here, I share with you a gif in which we can see how to link to the last commit.

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Once your screen shows the files associated with the commit, copy the link that appears above in the browser.

And that's it — as easy as that!

What hackathon project should my team do?

Although there will be a specific set of hackathon topics, within a topic, the choice is up to you (unless the topic specifies otherwise). You could brainstorm a new idea with your team, or start from one of the following seed ideas:

All entries are subject to the QHack Terms & Conditions.

Power-Ups

NVIDIA/Cyxtera Technologies/Run:ai Power-Ups:

The twenty-four (24) teams with the most promising preliminary hackathon projects using NVIDIA GPUs will each be awarded time on an A100 GPU.

IBM Quantum & PINQ² Power-Ups:

The eight (8) teams with the most promising preliminary hackathon projects will be awarded three (3) hours dedicated reservation hours on a 16-qubit QPU.

Amazon Braket Hackathon Power-Ups:

The fifteen (15) teams with the most promising preliminary hackathon projects will each be awarded USD $2,000 in AWS credits.

To qualify for the power-ups awarded for the most promising preliminary hackathon projects, you must complete and submit the form available here by Thursday, February 23, 2023, at 5:00 p.m. EST.

Timeline

Visualization Challenge

In this hackathon you are asked to create a program capable of automating the creation of a specific type of plot or visualization using code. These plots should illustrate a system, describe a quantum computing concept, or even generate quantum-inspired art automatically. Beyond the Bloch sphere, how can we represent more than one qubit? What about a way to visualize entanglement? Or a method to depict a qutrit? Visualization is fundamental to understand everything we do! Look for a topic and get to work!

First Prize:

Sponsored by: Atom Computing

Second Prize:

Sponsored by: Rigetti

Data visualization is one of the most powerful problem solving tools we have. A glance at the right graph can suggest an elegant solution to a problem from what would otherwise be a lifeless table of numbers. When Graphs are a Matter of Life and Death is an engaging article describing the history of data visualization and how it revolutionized the way we solve problems. The visualization and plotting challenge is a great opportunity to hone your data visualization skills so you too can leverage the power of graphs to solve the world's problems.

Third Prize:

Sponsored by: Strangeworks

We want to see you do everything you can think of. Good luck!

Quantum Chemistry Challenge

One of the main applications of quantum computing is the calculation of the ground state energy of specific molecules. As we calculate, we always work with approximations and models that simplify the real-world system, but move us away from the empirical results obtained in the laboratory. In this hackathon we will face a molecule a bit larger than normal: $BeH_2$. Your goal will be, with the help of a quantum computational algorithm, to obtain a result as close as possible to the real ground state energy value. Not only will the obtained result be evaluated, but other parameters such as time efficiency and the cleverness of your ideas will also be taken into account.

First Prize:

Sponsored by: IBM Quantum & PINQ2

Here are some ideas: use the Circuit Knitting Toolbox to simulate and calculate energy states of this large molecule, use the error mitigation and error suppression methods built into the Qiskit Runtime to produce high quality calculations of molecular energy states and vibrational energies.

Second Prize:

Sponsored by: QunaSys

As inspiration, you can check out qulacs on GitHub, QURI Parts documentation, or QURI Parts tutorials.

Third Prize:

Sponsored by: qBraid

This review article on variational quantum eigensolvers for quantum chemistry covers many new technique that still need to be implemented.If you are looking to write code for some new techniques, you will find this paper helpful. A bonus tip: there has been good progress in fermion to qubit mappings in the past year. But, which fermionic encoding is most resilient to errors in NISQ devices is still unknown. It would be wonderful if people could look into this problem. With good enough progress, this could lead to a nice paper.

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Computing Challenge

As you may already know, one of the big bets in quantum is hybrid computing, in which we combine the potential of quantum and classical computers to obtain results we would not be able to achieve with classical computing alone. This field is ripe for big, bold new ideas, which is where you come in! This hackathon asks you to look for new problems to which hybrid computing could be applied, think of new, interesting QML models, push the limits of hybrid programming and show us what it can do.

First Prize:

Sponsored by: Covalent

Curious about the possibility of using both quantum and classical computing to create a time machine? Check out this PennyLane demo and learn how to use Covalent and Pennylane to dance between classical and quantum parts in your code.

Second Prize:

Sponsored by: IQM

We are always on the lookout for genuine hybrid algorithms that have both heavy classical and quantum loads, as examples of workflows that could make real use of a large classical computation. Typical variational algorithms tend to have very limited classical computing needs, so it would be interesting to see something that uses a VQA only as a sub-routine, or even does something completely different.

Third Prize:

Sponsored by: QuEra

Preparing large and entangled quantum states is a main challenge in quantum computing — at QuEra, we've got you covered for both! As your duty, should you choose to accept it: explore methods to optimize Hamiltonian parameters classically. For example, try to prepare a Z2 state (alternated 0101) in a line, while overcoming the limitations of adiabatic protocols. Here are a few ideas that have not yet been demonstrated with neutral atoms, but should be possible: [1], [2]

Quantum computing today!

Since last year’s QHack we’ve witnessed many breakthroughs and groundbreaking, original ideas in the field of quantum computing. Today is the day to discover the potential of newly published research and realize it. In this hackathon we ask you to find scientific papers that have been published after February 2nd, 2022. You can try to replicate their results, extend them or even contribute new ideas to advance the presented research. Let's show what a good year it has been!

First Prize:

Sponsored by: Classiq

If you're not sure where to start, visit Classiq Academia.

Second Prize:

Sponsored by: BEIT

We encourage you to seek inspiration in quantum algorithms for the vibrational motion calculations. With PennyLane you may want to explore the latest progress in the newly emerging field of simulating the vibrational dynamics of molecules with quantum computers, apply or extend some of these newer methods. Enjoy!

Third Prize:

Sponsored by: Multiverse Computing

Check out the D-Wave case study with Multiverse Computing or apply for our open job listings and summer internships.

QEC and Compilation Challenge

We keep hearing that quantum computers are subject to noise and that we are in the NISQ era. Even now we are still far from being able to deal well with noise, so the goal of this hackathon will be to improve our faults. Find new error correcting codes? Optimize the complication of processing certain operators? You are free to choose your own project, so long as you keep one idea in mind: facilitate the execution of quantum circuits subjected to noise as best as you can.

First Prize:

Sponsored by: Nord Quantique

Second Prize:

Sponsored by: Entropica Labs

QAOA is a NISQ-friendly algorithm with modest resource requirements. However, when compiled for execution on a target quantum computer with limited connectivity, heavy overheads can arise due to the need for SWAP operations. Minimizing the number of these additional gates is essential to extract the best performance possible. Try designing a solution to optimize the SWAP networks specifically for QAOA circuits, making your computations more resource-effective with OpenQAOA — some ideas here.

Third Prize:

Sponsored by: AQT

AQT wishes you all success and good luck! Here are some sources of inspiration for the hackathon: [1], [2], [3], [4]

NVIDIA Challenge

Fault-tolerant quantum computers are coming, but we still have a lot of work to do to develop useful algorithms, and identify what applications will benefit the most from FTQCs. When Quantum Computers are in production they will be co-processors to GPUs. NVIDIA cuQuantum and QODA both enable you to get ready for tomorrow, today by allowing you run super fast quantum circuit simulations at scale and integrate classical workflows seamlessly with quantum processes. Leverage cuQuantum and/or QODA in your workflow to do something impactful for the quantum computing field. This could be new quantum kernels for a hybrid quantum classical application, research into noisy simulations or error correction codes, integrations with your favorite framework, or maybe leveraging approximate tensor networks algorithms to find ways to do more with less.

Prizes:

NVIDIA Resources

Useful blog posts

Anything that you would have liked done better? Product Feedback for cuQuantum, QODA, Run:AI, Was there something missing that you expected to be included? If you could include any of these answers in the project, it will be very useful to us.

Amazon Braket Challenge

Using Amazon Braket simulators or quantum processing units (QPUs), implement a quantum algorithm of your choice for a particular use case. Need inspiration? Check out last year’s Amazon Braket challenge winners, here. Use cases for social good is strongly encouraged, but not required. Several application areas which may be of interest are as follows, but don’t feel limited to these topics:

Prizes:

Amazon Braket resources:

How to get support for Amazon Braket:

We are excited to see what you build combining your ingenuity, PennyLane, and Amazon Braket during the hackathon. We invite you to stay in touch with AWS following QHack via the AWS Quantum Computing Blog. Best of luck! The Amazon Braket team

What are the judging criteria for ranking the Open Hackathon projects?

The QHack organizing team will grade every Open Hackathon submission based on three criteria:

Specific Open Hackathon Challenges may be judged by that Challenge's sponsors. The QHack organizing team will provide the sponsor with a ranked list of the top candidate projects that are eligible for that Challenge. The final winner will be chosen by the sponsor from this list of top candidates.

Good luck!