(Quantumlab.org) Singapore’s Center for Quantum Technologies (CQT) held a hackathon last month for over 40 students and professionals to learn to code in Qiskit, one of the leading software development frameworks for quantum computing. Qiskit is an open source quantum computing software development framework for quantum programming founded by IBM. IBM is offering cloud access to quantum computers built with superconducting technology. For the hackathon, Qiskit coaches flew in from IBM Research Tokyo and IBM Research Headquarters at Yorktown, New York.
Google’s Cirq in Second Hackathon
In November, CQT will host trainers from Google for a small workshop on that company’s Cirq software for quantum computing. Google is also developing quantum computers with superconducting qubits. Their machines are not currently available for public or commerical use.
For most of the Qiskit hackathon participants, it was their first experience with quantum. One participant commented that “learning and having a crash course on quantum computing” was what they enjoyed the most. In a survey, 95% of the participants reported having a positive experience, describing it as “collaborative”, “fruitful” and “eye-opening”.