Clemson teams sweep SC Quantathon, win trip to international competition

Several teams of Clemson University students traveled to Columbia in October to compete in the first ever SC Quantathon - a 24-hour quantum computing "hackathon" - and brought home wins in all categories, including the grand prize, a trip to Abu Dhabi in April to compete in an international hackathon.

Clemson sent four teams with a total of 18 students - both doctoral students and undergraduates in a variety of majors, including computer science, mathematical science, physics, computer engineering and electrical engineering. The teams were mentored and advised by Rong Ge, professor in the School of Computing.

"I want to create more opportunities and activities to engage students to do more in quantum computing. It is an emerging area, and a lot of other universities and companies are heavily investing in this new technology," Ge said. "I want to create an environment, an ecosystem to attract students and build something up in this field."

Quantum computing is harnessing the power of quantum mechanics - subatomic particles - to process complicated problems in a much faster timeframe than classical computers. For a quantum computer, challenges that might take a classical computer thousands of years to complete could be done in a matter of minutes.

Students competed in three different categories of challenges, all designed to put their creative problem-solving skills and quantum computing knowledge to the test. Teams worked for 24 hours straight on the different challenges, which included quantum random number generation, quantum machine learning and a quantum chemistry problem.

"Each team was given a conference room to work in overnight. Meals were provided, lots of caffeine was provided, and we were free to work as long as we wanted to," said Nathan Jones, doctoral student in computer science. "I don't want to say it was grueling because we had fun, but it was a hard experience being in that room working for 24 hours straight."

Having students from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds was helpful, said Valentine Mohaugen, an undergraduate physics major, as they were able to divide the work based on peoples' skillsets and experience. He also said it was a great opportunity to get experience on skills in other disciplines.

"Being in physics, I don't have much coding experience, and this definitely helped me understand more of coding, how to use the machines, and more experience in computer science in general," Mohaugen said. "I learned different ways of thinking for different problems, and how to think through different methods to get results."

"I like being dropped in the deep end of a new problem, and you sink or swim," said Jones. "I see that in everything I do, every internship or research project, it's something completely new, so the ability to adapt to new challenges is a great skill to keep sharpened. That was one of the best things that this hackathon gave us."

Because of their wins, some team members will have the opportunity to earn internships with companies that sponsored the different challenges, such as Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, Accelerise and DoraHacks.

As the overall winner, Clemson students will also be able to travel to Abu Dhabi in April to compete in the NYUAD International Hackathon for Social Good focusing on Quantum Computing.

Some undergraduates on Clemson's teams are participants in a Creative Inquiry project called Hands-on Quantum Computing, which allows them to gain experience with quantum computing platforms, software and tools. Creative Inquiry is Clemson's award-winning undergraduate research program, enrolling more than 72,000 undergraduate students in project-focused research teams in all disciplines since its start in 2005.

The Quantathon teams were also sponsored by the Watt Family Innovation Center, the University's most technology-enhanced academic building, which provides an environment for collaboration among students, faculty and leaders from industry and government agencies to generate ideas and solve complex problems.