SC Quantum & QuantathonV2
Last week SC Quantum brought together some of the brightest minds from colleges around the world for QuantathonV2, the 2025 International Quantum Circuit hackathon championship. Quantum Rings was fortunate enough to send our own Rob Wamsley to serve as a judge and mentor where he was able to observe firsthand the creativity, innovation, and collaboration that defined this event.
qPCA: The Shaw Circle Challenge
QuantathonV2 featured four challenges across a variety of disciplines with challenges ranging from tornado classification to complex puzzle solving. Of the four, Rob mentored and judged teams tackling the finance challenge presented by Shaw Circle. Rob’s background as both a physics PhD and a quantitative financial analyst made him the perfect mentor for this task as participants worked to develop their own quantum Principal-Component-Analysis (qPCA) algorithms.
For 26 action-packed hours, the teams worked tirelessly to develop qPCA algorithms that could preform complex computations currently used for financial analysis. With the help of Rob and the other mentors, the groups were able to reach new heights, finding novel solutions to the challenge.
Vanderbilt Victorious
After a long day and night of hacking, a group of five freshmen from the Vanderbilt Quantum Initiative won not only the Shaw Circle challenge, but also the overall competition! Their prize: A trip to compete at the NYU Abu Dhabi International Hackathon for Social Good in April. Congratulations and we look forward to seeing what you accomplish next!
Looking Forward
We were honored to be able to play a part in this year’s Quantathon. Thank you to SC Quantum for organizing such an incredible event! Events like this reinforce our belief that the future of quantum is a bright one with tons of young talent coming up through the pipeline.
Our team is now preparing for an exciting conference tour with stops at some of quantum’s biggest events, including the Chicago Quantum Summit and Q2B Silicon Valley. We will then kick off the new year by returning as a sponsor at MIT’s iQuHack 2026!
