Poland Event Report
QI4U in Poland 2026 (March 3 to 5, 2026)
QI4U Workshop Held in Poland (March 3-5)
From March 3 to 5, 2026, we held a three-day workshop on quantum computing, "Quantum Infinity for You in Poland 2026 (QI4U in Poland 2026)," at the University of Warsaw in Poland.
In this report, I introduce the workshop and the various activities held throughout the three days, including lectures, hands-on sessions, poster presentations, and group discussions.
A Warm Welcome in the Freezing Cold
This workshop was held around the same time as QI4U at the University of Helsinki in Finland, but the two events developed quite different programs and directions. One of the most interesting aspects of QI4U is that each event reflects the character of its host location.
In preparation for QI4U in Poland, I had been staying with the Gull group at the University of Warsaw for approximately two months. Together with Assistant Professor Masaru Hitomi of Tohoku University, who had arrived at the group shortly before me and served as the leader of the event, we began preparing for the workshop well in advance.
During the preparation period, we repeatedly discussed the program with the organizing team and our local hosts. Shortly before the event, the other members from Japan joined us, and we spent the final days living under the same roof and working together on the preparations.
Winter in Warsaw was bitterly cold, but I still remember the quiet streets I walked through after finishing each day's work. It was a hectic period, but looking back, it was also a valuable experience to build an event together from the ground up.
Ultimately, more than 60 students and researchers from universities across Poland participated, the largest attendance among the events held as part of the "Quantum Universe EXPO." Through lectures, hands-on sessions, and discussions, the workshop provided participants with opportunities to explore quantum computing research and technologies, and we were delighted to receive positive feedback from many of them.
Day 1: From the Fundamentals of Quantum Annealing to Implementation
The first day focused on quantum annealing. The program was designed so that participants could first learn its fundamental concepts and then implement them themselves through hands-on exercises.
By separating quantum annealing and gate-based quantum computing into different days, we aimed to help participants understand the distinct ideas and characteristics of each approach and experience how they can actually be used.
The event opened with an introduction by our local host, Professor Emanuel Gull of the University of Warsaw.
In the lecture session, Assistant Professor Masaru Hitomi gave an introductory lecture on quantum annealing. Participants learned the underlying physics and basic concepts, providing the foundation needed for the hands-on session that followed.
Quantum annealing is a computational approach that uses the time evolution of a quantum system to search for low-energy states corresponding to solutions of combinatorial optimization problems. The lecture introduced its basic principles and explained how optimization problems can be mapped onto quantum annealing formulations.
In the hands-on session, Kaito Yashiro, then a second-year Master's student at Tohoku University, gave a session titled "Schedule Optimization Using Quantum Annealing."
Participants worked directly with programs and explored a concrete application of quantum annealing. By experiencing how the concepts introduced in the lecture could be connected to an actual optimization problem, they had the opportunity to understand quantum annealing not only as a theoretical concept, but also as a computational tool they could use themselves.
This was followed by a poster session featuring members from Japan, including Yu Aoki of Institute of Science Tokyo, Kaito Yashiro, and myself, as well as local participants.
Approximately 20 posters were presented, covering a broad range of topics from fundamental physics to quantum algorithms, computational methods, device-oriented research, and engineering applications.
Participants with different academic backgrounds exchanged ideas about one another's research, creating discussions that crossed disciplinary boundaries from physics to engineering, all under the common theme of quantum computing.
A social gathering was held after the poster session, providing further opportunities for participants to interact and get to know one another through conversations extending well beyond research topics.
Day 2: Gate-Based Quantum Computing and the Physics of Real Hardware
The second day focused on gate-based quantum computing. The program progressed step by step from a foundational lecture to a hands-on quantum algorithm session, a lecture on real quantum computing hardware, and finally a group discussion.
The overall structure was designed around a progression of learning the principles, implementing them firsthand, understanding the physical hardware, and then using that knowledge to think about new applications.
The lecture session featured Mgr. M. Siemaszko of the University of Warsaw, who introduced the fundamentals of gate-based quantum computing.
Starting from linear algebra, the lecture explained the physics of quantum states and quantum gates, giving participants the background required to understand the quantum algorithms used in the subsequent hands-on session.
For the hands-on session, I presented "Stock Price Movement Estimation Using a Quantum Born Machine."
Using a quantum Born machine, a model in which quantum circuits are used to represent probability distributions, participants constructed quantum circuits themselves and explored applications of gate-based quantum computing to data analysis and machine learning.
By implementing a computational framework different from the quantum annealing approach introduced on the previous day, participants were able to experience the distinctive concepts behind algorithms and programming for gate-based quantum computers.
This was followed by a lecture by Dr. J. Mrożek of IQM on the physical implementation of quantum computers.
Rather than viewing quantum algorithms solely as abstract quantum circuits, participants learned how such circuits are realized in actual physical systems. This provided an opportunity to understand quantum computers from both the software and hardware perspectives.
Participants then divided into several teams and, together with mentors, took part in group discussions aimed at developing concrete research ideas involving quantum computing.
Each team actively discussed questions such as what types of problems quantum computers could be applied to and where genuinely quantum features might offer advantages over existing approaches.
Some teams went beyond discussion and immediately adapted what they had learned in the hands-on sessions, writing code and carrying out simple implementations. It was particularly impressive to see participants move beyond simply receiving knowledge and begin defining their own problems and developing them into research ideas.
Day 3: Invited Lecture, Research Idea Presentations, and Panel Discussion
The final day began with an invited lecture by Dr. Alice Moutenet of Alice & Bob.
Hearing directly from a researcher actively involved in quantum computer research and development gave participants an opportunity to connect what they had learned over the previous two days with current developments in quantum technology.
Research Ideas Emerging from the Group Discussions
The invited lecture was followed by a session in which each team presented the outcomes of the previous day's group discussions.
Using the lectures and hands-on sessions from the first two days as a starting point, the teams considered the question, "What kinds of problems can quantum computers be applied to?" Rather than stopping at broad themes, they explored concrete problem settings and possible implementation strategies. Some teams even developed working prototypes during the discussion period.
One proposed idea was to apply quantum annealing to materials discovery. The team treated the relationship between experimental fabrication conditions and resulting material properties as a black-box optimization problem, with the goal of identifying optimal conditions from experimental data. Specific examples included optimizing the temperature required to form particular structures on an ice surface and optimizing material doping conditions using quantum annealing.
Another team began with the fundamental question, "Under what circumstances can quantum computation outperform classical computation?" They went on to test the idea directly by attempting to predict temperatures in Warsaw using quantum machine learning. The team obtained weather data from Warsaw Chopin Airport and adapted the quantum machine-learning code used in the Day 2 hands-on session to generate predictions of future temperatures. As a next step, they proposed comparing the model with classical machine-learning approaches such as LSTM and XGBoost.
The team I joined explored the possibility of applying the quantum Born machine introduced in the Day 2 hands-on session to electroencephalogram (EEG) data. In the hands-on session, stock-price time-series data were represented as quantum states, and a quantum circuit was trained to reproduce transitions between those states. We therefore asked whether the same framework could be applied to another type of complex time-series data, such as brainwaves.
If the temporal evolution of EEG signals can be represented as the time evolution of quantum states and an effective Hamiltonian generating that evolution can be inferred from the data, the model could potentially be used not only to predict future signals but also to analyze the underlying dynamics. This led us to discuss possibilities such as "explainable medical AI," in which inferred Hamiltonians and their eigenvalues could provide clues for interpreting model outputs, as well as the possibility of detecting subtle changes in biological signals associated with anomalous behavior.
Of course, these were research ideas developed during the workshop, and the effectiveness and feasibility of using quantum computation for such applications will require further investigation.
Nevertheless, one of the most memorable aspects of the workshop was seeing participants go beyond completing predefined lecture and hands-on exercises. They took the methods they had learned, applied them to problems that genuinely interested them, and in some cases implemented their ideas on the spot before presenting them as initial research proposals.
Panel Discussion
Following the presentation of the group discussion outcomes, a panel discussion was held with several panelists, including Professor Emanuel Gull and Assistant Professor Masaru Hitomi.
Participants asked questions on a wide variety of topics, including quantum computing research, hardware, algorithms, and future career paths.
The questions continued until the very end of the session, reflecting the strong interest of the Polish students in quantum computing. Their enthusiasm was also highly stimulating for me personally.
The three-day workshop concluded with a final lunch shared by all participants.
Closing Remarks
This event was made possible through the support and cooperation of many people.
First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Professor Emanuel Gull of the University of Warsaw for warmly welcoming the workshop, arranging the venue, giving a lecture, and providing extensive support throughout the event.
I would also like to thank all members of Professor Gull's research group for supporting the workshop in many different ways. On a personal level, they were also important friends and colleagues with whom I spent much of my approximately two-month research stay. I am deeply grateful for the time we shared, both in research and in everyday life in Warsaw.
I would also like to thank everyone who gave lectures and invited talks, the members of the organizing organization candela, and, of course, all of the participants who joined the workshop.
A total of three student members from Tohoku University and Institute of Science Tokyo traveled to Poland to help organize the event and give lectures. Dr. Ami Koshikawa, Visiting Researcher in the Ohzeki Group, also contributed locally as an organizer and panelist.
From the preparation period through the event itself, all of us worked together through repeated trial and error to build the workshop. Being able not only to deliver lectures, but also to work directly with participants and think together about how the knowledge gained during the workshop could be applied to new problems, was an experience unique to QI4U.
I would especially like to express my deep gratitude to Assistant Professor Masaru Hitomi, who took the lead in negotiations with our local partners, program planning, management, lectures, and many other aspects of the workshop. This event could not have been realized in its present form without his tremendous efforts.
Finally, I would like to sincerely thank Professor Masayuki Ohzeki for giving me the opportunity to take part in such a valuable experience.
