Announcing The Next IBM Quantum Challenge, Where You Can Build The Not-So-Distant Quantum Future
By Dr. Takahiko Satoh, Project Assistant Professor, Keio University and
Shin Nishio, Research Assistant, National Institute of Informatics
Starting on November 8 at 7:00PM EST/November 9 at 9:00AM JST, we will be hosting a three-week competitive quantum programming event called IBM Quantum Challenge: Programming for the Not-So-Distant Quantum Future. Participants will learn how to program quantum algorithms through a two-week learning challenge, and in the final week will tackle a problem and compete with other participants to write the most efficient program. This will be a great opportunity not only for quantum programmers, but for anyone interested in quantum computing. You can apply to participate here.
We’re shocked by how quickly this field has developed. Ten years ago, I was learning quantum algorithms and trying to write more efficient quantum circuits by reducing the number of CNOT gates and auxiliary qubits. I expected that the circuit I was proposing would be implementable on real hardware by the end of the 2020s. In reality, that circuit was implemented in 2019 using both superconducting and photonic qubits. Not only has the actual hardware progressed quickly, but the global community has grown alongside it. Today, research institutions are holding quantum programming competitions on a scale that was unimaginable when I first entered the field. I’m delighted to once again be involved in an event where challenges are leading to participants inventing innovative data structures and quantum programming techniques.
Some people say that quantum computing is in its infancy, like a computer in the 1950s. There is a big difference, however: global open-source communities such as Qiskit are actively researching and developing quantum computers, plus researchers can access these devices over the cloud. This makes it easier for more people to enter the field and advance the technology than it was for computing in the 1950s.
Over the past year, noisy, intermediate-scale quantum computers have matured, while near-term algorithms have evolved. However, it will still be a few years before devices capable of implementing longer and more useful algorithms emerge. This year’s challenge is looking toward those future devices, and we hope it will solve problems that might not be implementable on a real processor for a decade or more. Additionally, we hope to present future quantum programming challenges to a large number of young participants, and to speed up the advancement of quantum programming technology through their efforts.
In order to give you a sense of what the IBM Quantum Challenge might be like — and how we’re trying to make quantum competitive programming more exciting and accessible for everyone — I’m going to walk you through the final problem of the IBM Quantum Challenge 2019:
As the mayor of a city, you invite multiple convenience store chains to the city, but each chain store (represented as color) has asked you to ensure that stores in the same chain are not adjacent. Can you make such a store opening plan?
In other words, the goal is to color the nodes so that they don’t have the same color in adjacent nodes. Many quantum computing textbooks often introduce the topic using mathematically defined abstract problems, but this contest uses quantum algorithms to solve problems that feel more familiar Participants solved that problem by using a very useful algorithm called Grover’s algorithm.
If this sounds difficult, rest assured: the IBM Quantum Challenge includes a full introduction to quantum circuits and quantum algorithms so that newcomers to this field can compete evenly with other programmers. Knowledge of quantum computing is not a prerequisite, and anyone with basic knowledge of python can participate. Like the last challenge, participants will compete with the aim of reducing the scale of quantum computer programs using an index called “cost”. This gives a measure that allows us to implement the quantum algorithm most efficiently.
Many of the people we met at last year’s Quantum Challenge (and other hackathons) are now at the forefront of the Quantum Computing community, too. “Rainy Day Hacker” Rana hosted the Qiskit Challenge India, and that team provided a lot of useful advice for this challenge as well (Thanks!). IBM Quantum Challenge 2019 Winner “Whit3z” Naphan came to our lab from Thailand as a PhD candidate, and we are looking forward to seeing the quantum applications he will create in the future. We are sure other participants (who could not be introduced here) will be young quantum leaders in their countries, as well.
The number of quantum programmers is growing rapidly, but there is still a shortage of them. We look forward to this year’s participants discovering the joys of quantum programming and leading the next generation of quantum software development.
Thinking ahead, what problems do you think will be presented in the 2030 IBM Quantum Challenge? Will there be a more high-level quantum language in vogue? (Maybe. At least I imagine that there will be logical qubits, or at least more than 32 controllable qubits, and we won’t use a simulator) What about large-scale quantum walks? An undiscovered new algorithm? Or will there be a Challenge 2019-like coloring problem? Perhaps there will be problems that are currently unimaginable. Hopefully, more challenge participation today will help this field mature and pave the way for the challenges of the future.
We hope that today’s participants will invent novel quantum problems and organize competitions as diverse as the classical programming contests. We look forward to seeing you at the contest! Register HERE.
