The Quantum Quest is an international online course introducing students to the mathematical foundations of quantum computing. With approximately 56 active participants on our Discord server, this year’s cohort represents a wide range of countries. Several Dutch secondary schools have also incorporated the program into their mathematics curriculum, resulting in a balanced mix of Dutch and international students.
Op 25 september vond de vakbijeenkomst Quantum Quest voor VWO-docenten plaats aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam. Medewerkers van het Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica en van de UvA informeerden de aanwezige docenten wiskunde, natuurkunde en informatica over het vakgebied quantumcomputing. Lynn Engelberts (CWI) legde de belangrijkste begrippen uit de quantummechanica uit: superpositie, interferentie en verstrengeling.
Quantum Quest is a five-week web class for high school students, organized by the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and QuSoft. This is the fifth edition, which will last from October 27 to December 15, 2025. In Quantum Quest, you will explore what makes quantum computers so special, solve tricky puzzles in a team and learn the mathematics of real quantum algorithms. The Quantum Quest is a math course for motivated high school students, or early university (STEM) students.
On September 1, 2025, a familiar QuSoft face came to the office in Amsterdam, this time as a senior researcher. Freek Witteveen joined CWI as a permanent researcher, affiliated with the Research Center for Quantum Software through the research collaboration. His appointment marks a new cycle for a young scientist who first joined QuSoft as a PhD student and went on to gain recognition in quantum information theory and many-body physics both in the Netherlands and abroad.
Source: QuSoft
Als onderdeel van het UNESCO International Year of Quantum (IYQ25) is QuTech toegewijd aan het verhogen van het publieke bewustzijn over het belang van de quantumwetenschap en haar toepassingen. We richten ons met name op de jongere generatie om hun ideeën, hoop en zorgen over de toekomst te verkennen. In de hoop een unieke gelegenheid voor dialoog te creëren, openen we de QUANTUTOPIA oproep voor creatief schrijven.
Source: QuTech
Stephanie Wehner, Director of the European Quantum Internet Alliance and Professor at QuTech (TU Delft), has been honoured with the Körber European Science Prize, one of Europe’s most prestigious scientific awards.
The AI system AlphaTensor-Quantum can make quantum computing more efficient. By optimizing quantum circuits, it makes calculations more efficient to save resources and accelerate discoveries.
Originally published on the University of Amsterdam’s Informatics Institute website
The call, funded through QSC, aims to support research at the intersection of theory and experiments on one of the four research lines of the Quantum Software Consortium. A proposal could for example fund a short postdoc or continuation of a research project by a PhD student who is nearing the end of their contract. Preference will be given to proposals which include research performed at more than one of the three nodes and to proposals involving experiment-theory collaboration.
Can humans perceive single photons? How can we make quantum computers more stable? Wolfgang Löffler (LION) and Evert van Nieuwenburg (LION) from Leiden University have received funding for their research projects within the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA).
Wereldwijd is een race aan de gang om een stabiele quantumcomputer te maken. Wanneer het ons lukt om echt werkende quantumcomputers te bouwen, dan zijn sommige encryptie-algoritmes niet meer veilig, bijvoorbeeld de versleuteling van je bankgegevens. Daarom moeten we ons nu al voorbereiden op de komst van quantumcomputers.
Bron: Vierkant voor Wiskunde
Onze IT-infrastructuur is alleen maar onveiliger geworden. Sterke encryptie is broodnodig, aldus Ot van Daalen, promovendus aan het Instituut voor Informatierecht aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Christian Schaffner (Qusoft) was interviewed in a BNR podcast, discussing the impact of quantum computers on crytography and in particular on crypto currencies on October 31, 2019.
What is quantum supremacy, how does one demonstrate quantum supremacy and why is this such an important milestone ? A blog of Qutech by Adriaan Rol.
An invitation to contribute to a Gender Equality Survey that was prepared by a Gender Working Group of the Quantum Technology Flagship to collect the community’s views on gender equality.
If you take just one piece of information from this blog: Quantum computers would not solve hard search problems instantaneously by simply trying all the possible solutions at once.
On Friday the 13th of December, 2019 the Quantum Software Consortium held its first Junior Day. The idea was to create a get-together for all young quantum information and computation minded researchers in the Netherlands.
A great story about the impact of the National Agenda for Quantum Technology for the Netherlands (in Dutch): https://www.consultancy.nl/nieuws/26117/hoe-blijft-nederland-mondiaal-koploper-in-quantumtechnologie
Het kabinet investeert de komende vijf jaar 23,5 miljoen euro in quantumtechnologie, één van de sleuteltechnologieën met groot potentieel voor de toekomst. Het bedrag is bedoeld als financieel startschot van de uitvoering van de Nationale Agenda Quantum Technologie, die in september 2019 aan het kabinet werd aangeboden.
The Quantum Training and Junior Day (31/3 and 1/4) have been cancelled, because of the corona virus.
Bluetooth is watching you. De bezwaren nemen toe tegen de corona-apps van kabinet. Privacy-organisaties en prominente journalisten, schrijvers en experts hebben een pamflet opgesteld met een serie voorwaarden waaraan de nieuwe controle-app zou moeten voldoen.
Quantum researcher Harry Buhrman joins the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). The KNAW is the most relevant Dutch society of top scientists. Together with seventeen other researchers, Buhrman will be installed as a new Academy member on September 14, 2020. Buhrman is affiliated with the CWI and the University of Amsterdam. He is also director and founder of research institute QuSoft, which focuses on the development of quantum software and applications of quantum computers and quantum networks.
Professor Barbara Terhal, group leader at QuTech and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science of TU Delft, has been appointed as new member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Barbara Terhal is a member of the Gender & Diversity Council of Quantum Software Consortium.
Minister Ingrid van Engelshoven and European Commissioner Mariya Gabriel launched Europe’s first public quantum computing platform: ‘Quantum Inspire’. The platform was developed by Delft-based QuTech, a collaboration between TU Delft and TNO. Quantum Inspire makes the quantum computer accessible to everyone and is the first in the world to use a quantum processor made of scalable ‘spin qubits’.
Shell cooperates with theoretical physicists and chemists of Leiden University to research how quantum computer algorithms can help simulate complex molecules.
De quantumhuiscomputer is nog ver weg. Lieven Vandersypen, hoogleraar QuTech, op de campus van de TU Delft, werkt aan technologie voor quantumcomputers. Lieven Vandersypen wordt er directeur.
Jana Sotáková, PhD student at Qusoft and UvA, won the best-paper award at the IACR flagship conference CRYPTO 2020 for her article "Breaking the Decisional Diffie-Hellman Problem for Class Group Actions Using Genus Theory".
The board of NWO-I, the institute organisation of NWO, appoints Prof. Ton de Kok as director of CWI. On 1 October 2020, De Kok will succeed the current director, Prof. Jos Baeten, who has led the institute since 2011 and will retire.
Léo Ducas from CWI's Cryptology Group in Amsterdam is awarded an ERC Starting Grant of 1.5 million euro for research on quantum-safe cryptography. Most of today’s cryptographic methods will not be secure against attacks based on possible future quantum computers. Ducas studies lattice-based and code-based cryptography, areas whose methods are widely viewed as the most promising to provide long-term cryptographic security for computers and networks worldwide in the face of quantum computing.
Since 2015, QuSoft has grown into a leading research institute where over 60 scientists of the Dutch national research institute for mathematics and computer science (CWI) and Faculty of Science from the University of Amsterdam (FNWI) work together on fundamental and multidisciplinary quantum research. After five years, director of CWI, Jos Baeten and Peter van Tienderen, dean FNWI, signed the agreement that continues this collaboration.