Intensive cooperation between research and industryUniversity of Hamburg Early Career Researchers Win International Competition

7 January 2025, by Christina Krätzig

Photo: private

Nis-Luca van Hülst (left) and Dr. Tomohiro Hashizume from the winning group shortly before the awards ceremony in Silicon Valley; not pictured: group members Theofanis Panagos, Greta Sophie Reese, and Dr. Shahram Panahiyan

A team of doctoral researchers and postdocs in the Department of Physics at the University of Hamburg have won the Airbus-BMW Group Quantum Computing Challenge in one of 5 categories. The international competition is organized by Airbus, BMW, and Amazon in cooperation with the digital magazine The Quantum Insider. The goal was to use quantum technologies for new approaches to studying challenges in the field of mobility.

Mr. van Hülst, you and your colleague Dr. Tomohiro Hashizume have just taken part in the awards ceremony in California. What was it like?

It was really exciting. Because there was a conference on the topic at the same time, we got to know some of the groups we were competing against, including a start-up from Stanford and a group from the Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi. They also submitted great projects and it was a great feeling to have won against such stiff competition.  

In total, 420 teams applied in the 5 different competition categories; around 100 were invited in the first round. How do you explain your success?

In our area, we had to develop efficient algorithms for problems in aeroacoustics and aerodynamics. Participants had to use quantum mechanics or quantum-inspired methods. Our group used both methods and linked them. Our program can run on classic computers and, in the future, on quantum computers. I think that the linking of different methods and the efficiency this promises were the major factors in our success.

The challenge was developed by corporations and the jury included leading researchers in the field such as Prof. Juan Ignacio Cirac Sasturain from the Max Plank Institute of Quantum Optics and Prof. Seth Lloyd from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. How is the collaboration between industry and universities in the field of quantum computing?

I think that this field of research can advance only through cooperation between industry and science. It is a large, challenging research field with enormous potential, but it requires the financial resources, knowledge, and determination of universities and other research institutions to achieve real progress. The competition fostered exactly this kind of collaboration.

Hamburg’s research project was headed by Dieter Jaksch, professor at the Institute for Quantum Physics and researcher in the Cluster of Excellence CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter at Universität Hamburg—University of Excellence.