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From left to right, Dr. Lorcon Conlon, Phoong Kah Yung (Jackson) and V. Vijendran

Congratulations to researchers V. Vijendran, Dr. Lorcon Conlon and Phoong Kah Yung (Jackson), who represented A*STAR Q.InC and secured the top prize at MIT iQuHACK 2025, a quantum hackathon hosted by IonQ. Competing remotely, they placed first among all virtual participants, while teams from Yale and Harvard, who competed in person, took second and third places respectively. Over 2,000 participants, from students to early-career professionals, converged to explore new frontiers of near-term quantum devices. Event sponsors – including IonQ, Alice & Bob, Classiq, Moody’s, Quantinuum, QuEra, and D-Wave – offered challenges spanning combinatorial optimisation, quantum machine learning, state preparation, and circuit compilation.

IonQ, a global leader in quantum computing hardware and services, designed a three-tiered combinatorial optimisation challenge. The final and most complex problem was one IonQ had been researching, and posed at the hackathon as an open invitation for participants to devise fresh approaches. In their recent manuscript  IonQ explored applying variational quantum imaginary time evolution algorithms and physics-inspired ansätze to problems like MaxCut. Hackathon teams were tasked with besting IonQ’s own benchmarks for solutions to MaxCut and its variants.

MaxCut and its related partitioning problems have direct implications for real-world scenarios where large networks need to be efficiently segmented. For instance, they are used to minimise communication bottlenecks in data centres, improve clustering in social and information networks, and streamline the layout of complex circuits. By finding optimal or near-optimal cuts in a graph, organisations can reduce operational costs, boost performance, and gain deeper insights into intricate interconnections in modern data-driven environments.

In line with its mission to foster a quantum-ready Singapore, Q.InC remains committed to talent development, encouraging its researchers to broaden their horizons through events like iQuHACK. The hackathon’s multi-day format featuring seminars, competitions, and networking opportunities, offers a growth-focused platform for researchers and students to engage with industry leaders, push the boundaries of quantum research, and drive innovations of real-world significance.

Notably, Dr. Lorcon Conlon and V. Vijendran also earned first place at the Q2B Hackathon in December 2024 for their winning Qiskit solution that optimises semidefinite programs (SDPs). Read more about their breakthrough approach in that competition.