A collaborative initiative is inviting multidisciplinary teams – comprising participants from quantum computing, finance, and technology backgrounds – to address challenges within UK financial services. The event provides selected teams with access to IBM quantum simulators and hardware, alongside educational resources and mentoring from IBM experts, to tackle high-value problems in portfolio optimisation & risk, market simulation, fraud detection, and post-trade innovation.
The Hackathon timeline commences with an application period (11 August – 2 September), followed by a build phase utilising IBM tools and support (8 – 28 September), with finalist selection occurring (1 – 8 October) and a final build phase (13 – 26 October), culminating in a live final at Mansion House on 30 October. Eligibility is restricted to teams of up to five members, with a focus on multidisciplinary and early-career applicants, and participation is open to residents of Europe, excluding Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine.
Quantum Finance Challenge
The “Quantum Finance Challenge”, a collaborative initiative designed to accelerate the application of quantum computing to financial services, is now accepting applications from multidisciplinary teams. This hackathon, facilitated by IBM and supported by the City of London, aims to address critical challenges in portfolio optimisation and risk, market simulation, fraud detection, and post-trade innovation – areas where classical computational methods are increasingly strained by complexity.
The event’s structure prioritises practical application, granting selected teams access to IBM’s quantum simulators and hardware, alongside dedicated educational resources and mentorship from IBM quantum experts. The core of the challenge lies in leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics – superposition and entanglement – to develop algorithms that outperform classical counterparts in specific financial modelling tasks.
Portfolio optimisation, for example, often involves navigating a vast solution space to identify the asset allocation that maximises returns for a given level of risk; quantum algorithms, such as the Quantum Approximate Optimisation Algorithm (QAOA), offer the potential to explore this space more efficiently than traditional methods. Similarly, market simulation, crucial for pricing derivatives and assessing risk, benefits from quantum algorithms capable of modelling complex correlations between financial instruments.
Participants will utilise IBM’s quantum computing infrastructure, encompassing both cloud-accessible simulators and, for select teams, access to actual quantum hardware. This provides a crucial platform for testing and refining quantum algorithms in a realistic environment.
The hackathon timeline is structured in phases: an initial application period (11 August – 2 September), followed by a build phase utilising IBM tools and support (8 – 28 September), finalist selection (1 – 8 October), a final build phase (13 – 26 October), and culminating in a live final at Mansion House on 30 October. This phased approach allows for iterative development and refinement of solutions.
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