Kawasaki, Japan, March 28, 2025 -- Fujitsu today announced the winners of its Quantum Simulator Challenge 2024, a competition to foster open innovation and identify practicial use cases for quantum computing. The awards ceremony will take place at Fujitsu Quantum Day 2025 Japan, an event for the quantum community, to be held on Friday, March 28, 2025, at Fujitsu Uvance Kawasaki Tower.

The Quantum Simulator Challenge, held for the second time in 2024, saw teams from academia and industry compete to develop quantum applications on Fujitsu’s 40-qubit quantum computer simulator, one of the largest of its kind in the world. The competition attracted 46 teams from 13 countries and regions who competed for a total prize fund of US$100,000. The collective usage of the quantum simulator by all participants during the competition period amounted to 2,282 job executions and 14,500 operational hours.

The first prize went to Delft University of Technology for its project 'Industrial Shift Scheduling on the Fujitsu Quantum Simulator'. This project carried out a simulation to verify the optimization of the allocation of working hours for the different steps of a vehicle assembly and painting line. The simulation was based on the open-source Quantum Industrial Shift Scheduling (QISS) algorithm developed by the university, which enables the identification of the optimal shift scheduling solution. The project used up to 39 qubits and demonstrated that quantum computing technology can contribute to solving massive industrial optimization problems and was highly praised for its uniqueness and usefulness. Second prize was awared to Technische Universität Ilmenau for their project "QuPIV - Quantum algorithm for cross-correlation analysis in particle image velocimetry" which presented a quantum solution for large-scale fluid analysis and utilized up to 32 qubits. Potential applications include aerospace and automotive engineering, urban pedestrian flow analysis, and microfluidics. Third prize was awarded to QunaSys Inc. for the project "Large-scale simulation of molecular electronic states using quantum phase estimation algorithm." The simulation, which utilized up to 39 qubits, focused on the electronic states of hydrogen and ethane molecules, and was rated by the judges for its simulation efficiency.

Hideto Okada, Head of Technology Strategy Unit, Fujitsu Limited, comments:

“Fujitsu has received numerous inquiries from customers considering the implementation of quantum technologies. We also recognize a significant expectation for quantum simulators, which serve as platforms for the practical application and testing of quantum algorithms. This contest, held for the second consecutive year, engaged teams from around the world in addressing various problem-solving themes, providing us with valuable feedback for future research and development. Fujitsu will continue to strengthen its collaboration with the quantum community and accelerate its efforts towards the practical application of quantum technologies.”

A number of proprietary Fujitsu technologies were used for the first time in this competition. The Quantum Decision Diagram (QDD) reduced processing time from 2,107 seconds (using a state vector-based quantum simulator) to 4 seconds at 26 qubits and allowed for computations to be successfully executed at 30 qubits and above. VQE Acceleration Technology reduced the computation time for quantum simulator calculations from an estimated 200 days using conventional methods to just one day.

Fujitsu globally announced the outline of this contest in May 2024 and began soliciting entries. From July to November 2024, participants worked on problem-solving themes they had each defined. Following the conclusion of the contest period, participating teams submitted reports on their research findings. Based on the content of these reports, a rigorous review was conducted by 12 judges, including researchers from Fujitsu's quantum computing division, and the winning teams were selected.