sponsored by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, Danish Business Authority and Danish Centre for AI Innovation.

Event timeline

01 July 2025: Applications open for participants
Registration opens soon
15 September 2025: Applications for Phase I closes. Evaluation within two weeks and top five projects will receive access to the Gefion Supercomputer for the Phase II project developments.
EQTC 10-12 November 2025: Top five projects presentations at the European Quantum Technologies Conference (EQTC) in Copenhagen.; Final winner presentation at leading quantum computing conference in spring 2026.

The Novo Nordisk Foundation (NNF), BioInnovation Institute (BII), Danish Centre for AI Innovation (DCAI), Molecular Quantum Solutions (MQS), Novo Holdings and QAI Ventures, together with The Danish Business Authority, Invest in Denmark and Innovation Centre Denmark and a number of collaborators and partners yet to be announced, have partnered up for organizing the Quantum Computing Innovation Challenge within the Life Sciences.

With the emergence of near term intermediate quantum computers and quantum-inspired algorithms powered by GPUs, it is important to understand their strengths and weaknesses, reduce the barrier to use, and adapt them for (bio)pharmaceutical development. The virtual quantum challenge is designed for researchers all over the world to work collaboratively in teams on projects.

Researchers can propose projects with respect to this year’s challenge topic applying quantum computing and quantum-inspired algorithms to existing benchmarks, developing new benchmarks involving quantum computing methods, creating sub-aglorithms based on quantum computing methods, proposing quantum computing based sampling and optimization methods, and more. After the challenge, results will be collated and secured under open-source and free license agreements (Apache/MIT) in the dedicated Quantum-Challenge-2025 repository.

This opportunity is open to researchers at all levels who are interested in quantum computing for better informed pharmaceutical development in the low data regime. Prior programming experience is required and basic familiarity with git and GitHub. Training and orientation resources are available on the resources page.

Logistics and Eligibility

Element space for ongoing comms, especially for the participants to find other team members (see also https://element.io).

A condition to be accepted for the submission of a project application is the clear documentation of an academic participant in form of a main team member of the project. More details about this on the eligibility page.

Pre-registrations and questions via email can be sent to quantum_challenge@mqs.dk during the two weeks Q&A phase (1st of July until the 15th of July) and will be collectively answered via the Q&A/FQA page.

Why participate?

A total of five submissions will be selected for presentation during the EQTC conference to be held in Copenhagen this year. In addition, these 5 teams will each receive a voucher giving them access to the Gefion AI Supercomputer to test and validate their proposals. The winning solution will be announced in conjunction with another leading European quantum conference in the Spring of 2026. Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a revolution that could change the world.

See also the agenda to get a timeline overview.

The top-ranked projects will be highlighted here: