With traditional computers gradually approaching their limits, the quantum computer promises to deliver a new level of computational power. As an active user of advanced computing solutions, Airbus is at the forefront of a paradigm shift in the computing world exploring how quantum computing could solve key questions for the aerospace industry, and forever alter how aircraft are built and flown.

The Airbus Quantum Computing Challenge (AQCC) addresses aerospace flight physics problems developed by company experts. Airbus is providing the quantum computing community with a unique opportunity to test and assess the newly-available computing capabilities to solve some of our most difficult and complex problems, and in doing so, further legitimize and fuel progress of this technology.

The challenge puts forward five distinct flight physics problems with varying degrees of complexity, ranging from a simple mathematical question to a global flight physics problem.

Through the Airbus Quantum Computing Challenge, the company aims to develop strong ties within the quantum community and encourage support in answering key questions facing the aerospace industry.

The challenge launched beginning of 2019 and runs throughout the whole year. It is open to the whole scientific community of experts, researchers, start-ups, academics and will lay the ground for the ultimate shift to a Quantum era in aerospace.

CFD Problem Statement
The efficiency of aircraft design relies heavily on the aircraft’s overall aerodynamic shape. This design is performed using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to demonstrate airflow behaviour around the aircraft and reveal the aerodynamic forces acting on its surfaces. However, accurate CFD simulations are a resource- and time-consuming task. This challenge aims to show how established CFD simulations can be run using a quantum computing algorithm or in a hybrid quantum-traditional way for faster problem solving and how the algorithm can scale in line with the problem complexity including computational resources.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
The challenge is open to Quantum Computing experts and enthusiasts (post-graduate students, PhDs, academics, researchers, start-ups, or professionals in the field), and you can participate either as an individual or as a team. To access the technical details of the problem statements please register here.

The submission period ends October 2019. The assessment period will last until end of January 2020, following which participants will be informed about the results within the first quarter of 2020.

Each Participant or Team will be required to send their submissions in accordance with the requirements which will be provided in the form of the ‘Submission Brief’ that will be published on this page.

Winners will be offered unique opportunities for hardware access (scheduled for 2020 and after), and to work collaboratively with our industry experts from the flight physics sector.