The UK Quantum Hackathon is the NQCC’s flagship annual event, delivered as part of our user engagement programme, SparQ. The event brings together teams of aspiring coders with industry mentors, to tackle practical challenges and develop solutions using quantum computing.
Aimed at students and early career researchers, participants gained hands-on experience using quantum algorithms and coding with quantum computers.
From 21st-23rd July 2025, the event ran over three days, with participants working in teams to develop solutions, showcase their results and demonstrate how they would tackle challenges in areas as diverse as healthcare, energy, and engineering.
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Use case provided by: Aioi R&D Lab/Mind Foundry
Quantum computing resources provided by: D-Wave and IBM Quantum
Team: Cubic Qubits
Use case provided by: Decision Lab
Quantum computing resources provided by: AWS, Rigetti (via AWS) + Classiq
Team: QuDITS
Use case provided by: Applied Quantum Computing
Quantum computing resources provided by: Infleqtion
I’m Shor this name will win
Connect the UK quantum ecosystem through networking and collaboration throughout the event
Develop use cases that can be further developed through the SparQ program
Develop quantum computing programming and application development skills in masters students, doctoral students, and other early career researchers
Demonstrate the current state of quantum computing technology for real-world applications. In particular, understanding the opportunities and limitations of quantum computing
Showcase the breadth of technology available currently and enable a broad range of users to access these tools
The UK Quantum Hackathon 2024 took place at the University of Warwick from 22nd July to 24th July 2024. The event concluded with teams presenting outstanding solutions to both their peers and a distinguished panel of judges.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2024
The NQCC held its second UK quantum hackathon in July 2023 at the University of Birmingham. It aimed at exploration and awareness-raising for the current capabilities and limitations of quantum computing technology, as well as at nurturing the talent pipeline and convening stakeholders.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2023
The hackathon was the first hands-on event organized by the NQCC in June 2022, following the launch of its SparQ applications discovery programme. The goal was to bring together quantum developers, end users, and technology providers to collaborate on solving real-world problems.
UK Quantum Hackathon 2022
The National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) hosted its third UK Quantum Hackathon at the University of Warwick in 2024, bringing together some of the brightest early-career quantum computing researchers.
Read the report
In July 2023, we held our second UK Quantum Hackathon at the University of Birmingham as part of SparQ, our user engagement programme. Over the course of two days, ten teams of early career researchers used quantum computing to tackle practical problems based on use cases provided by industrial end-users.
Read the report
The UK’s second quantum hackathon challenged ten teams of early-career researchers, industry mentors and hardware specialists to create quantum solutions to real-world problems in just two days.
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The UK’s first quantum computing hackathon challenged teams of students and early-career scientists to devise novel quantum solutions to real-life problems.
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