BMW Group hosts first conference on Quantum Computing for Automotive Challenges

The BMW Group is hosting the first conference on Quantum Computing for Automotive Challenges. The BMW Group sees its role not only as one member of the quantum computing community but wants to actively network, collaborate and thereby bridge the gap between foundational and applied research.

With the BMW Group Quantum Computing Challenge, we provided well-described industry reference problems representing the automotive industry. We are confident that this inspires the community to make industry application of quantum computing a reality.

—Dr. Andre Luckow, Head of Innovations & Emerging Technologies at BMW Group IT

At this year’s event, held from 20 – 21 July 2022, hosted by the BMW Group, all 15 finalists of the Quantum Computing for Automotive Challenge have the opportunity to present their ideas and solutions. All 15 finalists provided remarkable submissions to the challenge that deserve to be acknowledged by the larger ecosystem, BMW said.

The BMW Group and the main sponsor Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) invited the global quantum computing community to join this event.

Day 1 spotlighted the results of last year’s BMW Group Quantum Computing Challenge. A winning team was selected for each of the four specific industrial challenges identified as the most promising algorithm to address them. However, all finalists will have the chance to showcase their approach. The event will take place online.

On Day 2 featured keynote speeches by industry leaders from BMW Group and Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS) and panel discussions with members from large industry, academia, and quantum solution providers. The event was broadcasted and streamed publicly.

Quantum Computing is one of the most promising future technologies in the automotive sector. It has enormous potential for material sciences, complex optimization, and AI problems. Information can be handled through laws of quantum mechanics in a quantum computer. Thereby computational operations on information stored in different registers can be performed at the same time.

In 2021, the BMW Group, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), conducted a Crowd Innovation Initiative, asking the global quantum computing community to develop innovative quantum algorithms for four specific industrial challenges and test them on real quantum computing hardware. More than 70 teams from all over the world participated.