Post-quantum roundup #2 - iQuHack, summer opportunities

A weekly roundup that prepares technologists for the quantum computing revolution and the post-quantum world

The Post-Quantum Weekly Roundup prepares technologists for the quantum computing revolution and post-quantum world. If you would like to include anything in future roundups, please send me a direct message.

Paid subscribers will receive access to the full weekly roundups, while free subscribers will get a preview (and still need to read all of my notes for the updates). Let’s see how this evolves to become something more valuable to the community.

Overview

This week’s roundup is free for everyone because it focuses on and features a plethora of student opportunities I don’t want to gatekeep.

The emphasis on student opportunities stems from being so inspired by the young students I met online at iQuHack, MIT’s premier quantum computing hackathon, this weekend. Almost every quantum developer I knew was participating in or sponsoring the event, so make sure that you view the workshop videos and challenges. Hope that you solved the challenge or at least created something cool this weekend. I had more personal commitments this weekend than anticipated, so instead of programming a circuit, I created a website to explore the raw materials that are used to manufacture a quantum computer.

A screenshot of the quantum computer materials website I created during iQuHack 2026

Note: 🇮🇳 I’m in India to attend a cousin’s wedding, so I haven’t had the time to focus on the latest academic research. Research resumes next week, though!

Education

• Talk videos from the Qiskit Developer Conference 2025, a premier quantum programming and developer conference, are now available on YouTube.

• If you missed iQuHack 2026, MIT’s premier quantum computing hackathon, you can still view the following hackathon challenges and workshop videos:

  • Challenges

    • Superquantum

    • Bluequbit

    • ionQ

    • NVIDIA

  • Workshops

    • Hackathon Introduction

    • ionQ, Superquantum, Bluequbit

    • NVIDIA, QuEra, IBM

    • State Street/Classiq, Alice & Bob, Quantum Rings

    • Awards and Closing Ceremony

• The MIT Quantum Winter School 2026 is a program that educates undergraduate students in the Boston, United States area on quantum computing. Course materials are publicly available.

News

• Academia Sinica, based in Taiwan, unveiled a 20-qubit quantum computer.

• IBM Research developed an algorithm that can solve non-linear, unpredictable differential equations that classical computers struggle with.

• IBM Research also outlined how using classical computers (CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, FRGAs) alongside quantum computers (QPUs) is much more valuable.

• NVIDIA is pushing for the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) Reauthorization Act to pass, which renews the 2018 act and opens major U.S. federal funding for quantum computing.

• Anduril, Davidson Technologies, and D-Wave collaborated on a missile simulation demonstrating that quantum computing can improve interception speeds by 9 to 12 percent and increase the number of intercepted missiles by 45 to 60 in a simulated attack involving 500 missiles.

• Florida Atlantic University recently placed a $20-million order with D-Wave for a quantum computer and will become the first university in the State of Florida, United States, to own one.

Technical

• Cloudflare recently published a technical article on how to create a serverless Matrix homeserver that protects all TLS connections from quantum attacks. The Matrix protocol is an open, decentralized standard for real-time messaging, voice communication, and data synchronization.

• If you have proven that a use case was more efficient to solve on a quantum computer than on a classical one, submit it to the Quantum Advantage Tracker.

• Quantum programming is now available using C++ via Qiskit: https://github.com/Qiskit/qiskit-cpp.

• This month’s Qiskit community call is on Monday, February 23, 2026, at 10:00 A.M. Eastern Time. Join the Qiskit Discord to listen in.

Opportunities

• Check out your local universities’ quantum computing program or club, as it’s the most cost-effective (often free) way to attend quantum computing lectures.

  • For example, the QuantumX program at the University of Washington, Seattle, hosts free weekly public lectures on quantum computing.

  • The Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics also hosts free and paid workshops, lectures, and events across Scandinavia.

• The U.S. Department of Energy is seeking project proposals to conduct research using IBM’s superconducting quantum processors available through the IBM Quantum Innovation Center. Accepted proposals will get access to IBM QPUs through their very, very expensive Premium plan. Due: March 20, 2026

• IEEE Quantum Computing Week in September 2026, Toronto, Canada, has opened workshop, proposal, and technical talk proposals, as well as graduate student volunteer applications. Due: early March 2026.

Education

• QuCaMP is a free summer program for high school students in the Bay Area, California, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, to learn quantum physics, computing, and math. Due: Applications open February 2 to April 3, 2026.

  • It also offers a program for high school educators to learn and teach quantum computing. Applications open on the same dates.

Hackathons

• Quantathon 3.0 for any undergraduate students who can travel for the offline portion at SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST), Kattankulathur, Chennai, India. Due: Register by February 5 and submit a PowerPoint outlining your idea by February 6.

• Quantum Days 2026 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. February 18-20, 2026. Due: Registration by February 4, 2026. Ticket prices are $595 for professionals and $295 for students, which are average for large quantum computing conferences.

• The 14th Annual International Hackathon for Social Good will be held from April 24 to 26, 2026, for undergraduate or graduate students. This year’s focus is quantum computing. Due: Academic faculty must nominate students for participation by February 1, 2026.

• BlueQubit’s Quantum Advantage Challenge is designed to test whether regular computers can beat quantum computers. Crack a real Bitcoin wallet containing 0.25 BTC locked behind a series of peaked-circuit puzzles. Due: ongoing

Fellowships

• Junior research fellowship at the IIT, Kharagpur, India, for a Master’s in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, or a related field to work on reconfigurable and scalable photonic qubit architecture for quantum computing. Due: February 6, 2026

• Gil Herrera Fellowship in Quantum Information Science 2026 for Ph.D. graduates who are U.S. citizens to address national security issues using quantum information science and computing. Due: ASAP.

• The Open Quantum Initiative Undergraduate Fellowship is a paid summer research program for undergraduate students in the United States on quantum computing across various universities in the Midwest. Due: February 11, 2026.

• REU at Quantum at the University of Washington is a 10-week paid summer research program for undergraduate students who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents in quantum information science and engineering. Due: February 20, 2026

• MathQuantum at the University of Maryland is a program for high school and undergraduate students that helps solve problems in quantum information science using advanced mathematical tools. Due: February 13, 2026, for the summer program

Please reach out if you have any feedback, are looking for anything specific that I can help find, or want to list a specific resource in an upcoming edition.