Algorithmiq

If you have missed the recent AI in Drug Discovery panel organised by Codex at Merck Group, you can now catch this highlight reel featuring our Head of Partnerships & Sales Elsi-Mari Borrelli. 👇 📹 On the day, she joined Kenneth Mulvany (BenevolentAI), Rodrigo Barnes (OWKIN), Elise de Reus (Cradle), Tim Guilliams (Healx), Jan Gerit B. (Merck Group), and Julien Saint-Andrieux to discuss the potential of #AI and #quantumcomputing in drug design and discovery. The main takeaway from the panel was how important it is to bring experts together from different fields to share findings and inspire each other. The challenges we are trying to solve are complex ones, but together we can continue to focus on the end goal: improving outcomes for real-life patients. Thanks also to Florian Bräutigam (AV) and Jack Varey (videography).

Algorithmiq has been selected as one of the semifinalists of the XPRIZE Quantum Applications competition. 🍾🥂🎉 20 semifinalists were chosen from 133 applications, with the judges selecting companies that are bringing quantum algorithm innovation from concept to real-world applications in fields such as climate adaption, healthcare, and clean energy. 🍃⚕️🔋 The XPRIZE Quantum Applications is a 3-year, $5M global competition supported by GESDA - Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator and Google Quantum & AI and designed to generate quantum computing (QC) algorithms that can be put into practice to help solve real-world challenges. Half of the semifinalists (including us!) proposed entirely new algorithms, which XPrize acknowledges as “uncommon in a field where developing genuinely new approaches is difficult”. 🏆💪🎉 Congratulations to the other semifinalists as well: 4colors Research, Another Quantum, Austinites, BQE, Calbee Quantum, Gibbs Samplers, HQS Quantum Simulations, Los Quanta, Nature, ParityQC, Pasqal, Phasecraft, Q-CTRL, Q4Proteins, QC assisted biological electron microscopy, QuantumForGraphproblem, Riverlane, The QuMIT, and Xanadu. 🎉🌟🥳

Last week, our team attended the 2025 GESDA - Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator Summit, whose theme was “The Age of Possibilities: Science, Sovereignty, and a Shared Future,” with GESDA Director General Marilyne Andersen framing the summit as a time of “possibility,” aiming to translate science into action among the gathered communities of science, business, industry, diplomacy, and citizens of the world. 🌍 🔮 🌌 On the 15th, Stefan Knecht and Caterina Foti presented our use case, “Quantum computing for safer medicines: advancing drug metabolism simulation of CYP enzymes to reduce adverse reactions”, as one of the SDG-focused quantum computing applications that OQI – Open Quantum Institute has explored in their 2025 whitepaper. After this first morning of brainstorming, Caterina also brought QPlayLearn's vision to the QCI Pillar’s workshop “Advancing Capacity Building”, which focused on best practices for OQI hackathons and strategies to build stronger networking and collaboration among international partners. On the 17th, Ros Maniscalco contributed to “Quantum Diplomacy Game”, an immersive and experiential simulation where attendees had to respond to a fictional global quantum breakthrough with real-world implications. 👔💼🗳️ Last but not least, Catherine Lefebvre, PhD from GESDA, Kathrin Spendier, Ph.D. from XPRIZE, and Thomas O’Brien from Google Quantum AI announced that Algorithmiq is among the 20 semifinalists for the XPRIZE Quantum Applications competition, in which global teams are advancing quantum algorithms for real-world impact. 🎉🌟🥳 Thanks to GESDA and OQI for three truly inspiring days, reminding us of the possibilities that science breakthroughs may hold for humanity if all players come together and act responsibly in concert.

Exploring a beautiful Renaissance castle in the Italian countryside, learning to make gnocchi and to appreciate the craftmanship, dedication, and commitment that it takes to make Parmigiano Reggiano, visiting the beautiful region of Emilia Romagna: this is how we recharged last week after immersing ourselves in deep work. We emerged victorious from the intense strategy sessions with laser-focused clarity on our 2026 objectives and even a key scientific breakthrough. 🏰 🍝🧀 Our quarterly hackathon is one of our most cherished traditions, bringing together colleagues from all over the world for a fully immersive week that is often the place where the hardest problems we are working on get solved and unexpected scientific breakthroughs happen. It also gives us the opportunity to integrate scientific discussion and human connection, work and fun, long-term planning and enjoying the small moments of daily life. 🤝👥🔗 One of the strongest elements of our company culture is encouraging open conversation and bringing together people from different fields, something that we believe is necessary to achieve the ambitious goals of our #quantum roadmap. During this hackathon, we also visited Bologna for a day-long workshop with CINECA, a great opportunity to learn from experts at one of the biggest HPC centres in Europe. Therefore, our hackathons are a great way to allow people to meet in person and pick up those interesting conversations they are already having on a daily base, plus offering inspiration and fun activities to help people bond, laugh, and get to know eachother better. 🎤💬👥 After every hackahton, we feel energized, full of new ideas, and ready to tackle the next challenge. This time, we also came home with our 2026 strategy, a new scientific breakthrough, and new recipes!

Özlem Salehi Köken Salehi joined the #quantumcomputing field in 2019 and has seen first-hand how quantum computers have been steadily evolving and getting better and better, making quantum computing an incredibly exciting field to be in for any researcher interested in learning new things. In fact, Özlem got a Ph.D. in theoretical computer science and studied quantum optimization during her years as a postdoctoral researcher, before joining Algorithmiq, where she started to learn about quantum chemistry as well. At Algorithmiq, she is part of the state preparation team, where she focuses on improving the efficiency of quantum circuits, especially by reducing the number of gates needed. With current quantum devices, which are still noisy and have a limited number of qubits, optimization and efficiency are needed to efficiently create quantum algorithms that can run quantum chemistry simulations. 💻🔧🚀 The quantum algorithms we develop are used to determine molecules’ properties and by running simulations of these molecules, we can design better drugs that can in turn have a significant impact on human health and lifespan. 🧬🔬🤯 In addition to her work at Algorithmiq, Özlem is also one of the founders of QTurkey, a community born to popularize quantum technologies in Turkey, and has organized and led quantum programming workshops to support quantum education and learning. 💡💬💭 Her favourite aspect of working at Algorithmiq? She is happy to have moved beyond pure theoretical research to focus also on practical applications with real impact.

Adam Glos has always been motivated by a strong desire to learn new things. After completing his PhD and spending many years as a researcher, Algorithmiq offered a unique opportunity to develop skills not only as a researcher but also eventually as a software developer and a manager. Moreover, Algorithmiq represented the possibility of breaking out of silos and collaborating on the same vision with people from different fields. Adam has seen an entire organization come together to solve fundamental quantum chemistry problems that could change human health forever, which has been an incredibly motivating and inspiring experience. ⚕️🏥 🩺 Why has Algorithmiq been working on combining #quantum chemistry and #quantumcomputing? From the beginning, we know there is strong mathematical proof that #quantumcomputers can do something that classical computers cannot. This is especially true for quantum chemistry, as we would like to solve many problems that current classical computers simply don’t have enough power to solve efficiently. 🧪🔬💊 While it is difficult to produce usable entanglement on a conventional computer, quantum computers can create entanglement very easily. This means that physics that are difficult to simulate with classical computers could be more easily simulated on quantum machines. Adam’s team works on creating quantum algorithms that generate the solutions as well as making them understandable and runnable on quantum computers, not only for our team but for anybody around the world. 🔧💻🛠️ This, and our cross-collaborative approach that effectively eliminates silos, make Adam excited about working at Algorithmiq and the future of quantum computing in general.

Team Algorithmiq going strong! Our CEO Sabrina Maniscalco, together with our CSO Guillermo García-Pérez, Head of Corporate Partnerships & Sales Elsi-Mari Borrelli, Lead Quantum Chemist Stefan Knecht and Principal Quantum Chemist Fabijan Pavosevic, and Vijay Krishna from Cleveland Clinic joined the other contenders of the ongoing Phase 3 for the Wellcome Leap Quantum for Bio Supported Challenge Program at the Q4Bio - Quantum for Bio 4th Meeting in Copenhagen. On Day 1, hosted at the headquarters of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, all finalists showcased their work, which in our case focuses on a computational drug discovery pipeline in collaboration with IBM Quantum and Cleveland Clinic, with the goal of developing photo-activated drugs for cancer treatment. Day 2 — exclusive to Q4Bio - Quantum for Bio teams — gave each team the opportunity to highlight their progress of the first 6 months of Phase 3, which sparked lively conversations with the other contenders. Providing a first glimpse into our 50+ qubit hardware experiments to elucidate the photochemistry of a clinical relevant photosensitiser, we also underlined our readiness for the road ahead to scale to 100+ qubit experiments along with a clear path to arrive at quantum advantage as soon as in spring of 2026. Thanks to Novo Nordisk Foundation, Novo Holdings, BioInnovation Institute (BII), EIFO, NNF Quantum Computing Programme (NQCP), QuEra Computing Inc., Harvard University, Virginia Tech, University of Chicago, Phasecraft, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Infleqtion, University of Nottingham, and Wellcome Leap for two days full of shared insights and learnings.

To explain the relationship between researchers and software developers when it comes to #quantum algorithms, Ludmila Botelho has a very apt metaphor. 📐🏗️📝 “Imagine the researcher as the architect and the software developer as the construction engineer. They both want to build a beautiful, solid house, and they need to cooperate to translate the architect’s beautiful design into a strong building that will stand the test of time.” As a researcher turned software engineer, Ludmila understands how important it is to balance innovation and exactness and the necessity of enforcing high-quality standards for code that will be used by everybody. As somebody who is obsessed with quality, Ludmila takes care of testing, automation, documentation, debugging, and ensuring that the code we develop is efficient and rigorous. 💻📱🖥️ As the #quantumcomputing community develops, it is important that we develop standards that we can all agree upon. As Ludmilla puts it, “to be able to trust our results, we need to develop a common understanding of how to verify and validate them”. This is a community effort that should involve everybody in the quantum ecosystem, and it is also the approach we use at Algorithmiq, where researchers and software engineers are constantly discussing and learning from each other. Only together will we be able to create algorithms that bring value to real-life users, and it is also this openness and transparency that have made Ludmila feel like Algorithmiq was the perfect place to start her career as a software engineer. 🎆🎇🌠

Last week, our Lead Quantum Scientist Stefan Knecht joined Bitkom Quantum Summit in Berlin, which brought together industry experts, tech innovators, policymakers, and researchers to shape the roadmap from quantum potential to practical application. 🌆 🇩🇪 His talk, "Quantum Computing for Photon-Drug Interactions in Cancer Prevention and Treatment”, highlighted how novel quantum algorithms enable a scaling of quantum chemistry workflows on #quantumcomputers and open up new computational pathways to aid in the design and finding of photo-activated anti-cancer drugs. 🧪🔬 💊 This is the result of the design and development of our full-stack quantum algorithms together with our partners Cleveland Clinic and IBM Quantum, in the context of the Q4Bio - Quantum for Bio challenge. 🏥 💧🧬 #QuantumSummit focused on three pillars required for the advancement of #quantumcomputing: 💠 Shaping Ecosystems & Policy - Building a Quantum-Ready Future Through Policy, Investment and Collaboration 💠 Driving Business Impact - Unlocking Quantum’s Potential for Enterprises & Real-World Applications 💠 Pushing Technology Frontiers - Advancing Quantum Hardware, Software & Algorithms In our efforts to build a prosperous #quantum ecosystem, we welcome conversations that touch upon all of these topics, and are looking forward to contributing to this ongoing conversation on the global scale.

Recently, many news outlets have highlighted how the Nordics are building national #quantumcomputing strategies and strengthening international cooperation. Now, #HCLS practitioners can join this ongoing conversation at the Nordic Quantum Life Science Roundtable, which will take place in Stockholm on September 25th at Karolinska Institutet. 🏛️👥 To celebrate the 5-year Jubilee, quantum experts from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden will discuss QLS use cases and technologies, as well as how to leverage quantum initiatives and collaborations to make the Nordics a winner in the quantum race. 🇫🇮 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 🇩🇰 Our CEO, Sabrina Maniscalco, will lead the discussion on Finnish Quantum Life Science use cases and share findings and learnings from our recent collaborations with Cleveland Clinic and IBM, among others. The conversation will also include Katarina Bjelke from Vetenskapsrådet / Swedish Research Council, Darja Isaksson from Vinnova, Lene B. Oddershede from Novo Nordisk Foundation, Sara Mazur from Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse, and other leaders in the field. International cooperation and knowledge sharing are essential to reach quantum advantage, and we look forward to hearing about projects taking place in the rest of the Nordics and celebrating the 5-year Jubilee of the Roundtable. 🎉🥂