The Fraunhofer IAF is responsible for coordinating the KQCBW alongside the IAO. The Quantum Information Group, headed by Thomas Wellens, deals with topics at the interface between quantum hardware and software, in particular error characterization, error mitigation, and quantum optimization.

Rebekka Eberle's Quantum Systems Engineering group develops integrated color center-based quantum computing systems and transfers protocols for NV coupling into application. To this end, work is being carried out on the HPC connection of the measurement systems for performing hybrid quantum algorithms on NV centers in diamond at the quantum computing laboratory at Fraunhofer IAF.

Contact: Dr. Thomas Wellens
Website: Quantencomputing – Fraunhofer IAF

Together with Fraunhofer IAF, Fraunhofer IAO coordinates the KQCBW and regularly runs its dedicated training program. In 2021, the dedicated “Quantum Computing” team was established at Fraunhofer IAO in the “Digital Business” research area.
As part of the application-oriented research projects “SEQUOIA,” “SEQUOIA End-to-End,” “AutoQML,” “QORA II,” and several confidential industry projects, Fraunhofer IAO has acquired extensive expertise in the end-to-end implementation and demonstration of today's industrial use cases on various quantum hardware. The team's technical focus is on algorithms that are implemented on gate-based QC hardware and quantum annealers (including QAOA[+], VQE, VQR, QNNs, QSVMs, and circuit learning methods). 

Contact: Dr. Vamshi Mohan Katukuri
Website: Forschung – flaQship

At the beginning of 2022, Fraunhofer IPA founded the Quantum Computing Group, which focuses on quantum machine learning, quantum optimization, and quantum simulation. The group has demonstrated its wide-ranging and in-depth expertise in the above-mentioned areas through its successful participation in the SEQUOIA, SEQUOIA End-to-End, AutoQML, and AQUAS projects, as well as in recent projects (KQCBW24 and H2Giga). The AQUAS project has already demonstrated that learning based on information from the quantum mechanical wave function can lead to a data-efficient QML model for predicting molecular
excitation energies and transition dipole moments. As part of the H2Giga project, various VQE algorithms and fermion qubit mapping methods were implemented in a joint program library and their performance for various systems was comprehensively investigated. Furthermore, some experience with different variants of the “classical shadow” algorithm has already been gained here. In the KQCBW transfer project, experience has also already been gained with early-fault-tolerant algorithms such as QCELS.

Contact: Dr. Marco Roth
Website: Forschung – flaQship

For many years, Fraunhofer IWM has been working on atomistic computer simulations of the chemical and physical properties of metallic and ceramic materials for energy storage (lithium-ion batteries) and energy conversion (fuel cells/electrolysis cells) systems. Since 2021, Fraunhofer IWM has been working intensively on the challenge of applying quantum computing to simulate certain classes of materials more quickly and accurately. In the QuESt and QuESt+ projects, the research work focused on transferring the most numerically demanding part of the DMFT calculations to QC on the one hand, and on calculating energy spectra of defect complexes with variational algorithms and error mitigation on the other. As part of the KQCBW24 and QUBE projects launched in 2024, initial experience was also gained with the simulation of the time evolution of spin systems and fermionic quantum systems within the DMFT framework.

Contact: Dr. Daniel Urban
Website: Quantencomputer für innovative Materialsimulation nutzen – Fraunhofer IWM

Fraunhofer ICT conducts research and development in its core competencies of chemical processes, plastics technology, energy and drives, as well as explosives technology and safety. For several years now, the results and analyses of molecular simulation using quantum mechanical and molecular dynamic calculations have been used to support experimental work. Since 2021, another focus has been on the integration and use of quantum computing. As part of the QC-4-BW I and II and KQCBW24 projects, Fraunhofer ICT has successfully applied its expertise in the field of quantum chemistry and materials research to develop the qc-on-qc (quantum chemistry on quantum computers), which enables the calculation of larger molecular systems, in particular metal-organic framework materials (MOFs), with strongly correlated electron systems on quantum computers. As part of the project work to date, two publications have also been produced in the field of variational algorithms for improving
circuit approaches, which are currently undergoing peer review.

Contact: Dr. Andreas Omlor
Website: Chemische Prozesse – Fraunhofer ICT

The Electrochemical Systems Theory Group at the DLR Institute of Technical Thermodynamics, headed by Prof. Dr. Birger Horstmann, is working on battery modeling. The focus is on developing quantum algorithms for electronic structure and simulating quantum dynamic processes on quantum computers in order to better understand relevant processes at electrochemical interfaces and in battery cells. This improves the management of lithium-ion batteries and optimizes novel batteries.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Birger Horstmann
Website: DLR Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics

PD Dr. Sabine Wölk and her group at the DLR Institute of Quantum Technologies in Ulm have expertise in the development and implementation of various quantum algorithms, including a focus on hardware-software co-design and quantum reinforcement learning. In the QuESt and QuESt+ projects, extensive experience was gained in the field of NISQ algorithms for quantum simulation in collaboration with project partners,
with a focus on error mitigation and classical simulation methods. Building on this, the KQCBW transfer project then developed an iterative, classical algorithm for finding efficient circuits for the approximate preparation of SOS initial states and optimized the corresponding circuits for (early) fault-tolerant platforms.

Contact: PD Dr. Sabine Wölk
Website: Abteilung Quanteninformation und -kommunikation

For more than two decades, Prof. Jörg Wrachtrup's group at the Third Institute of Physics at the University of Stuttgart (USTUTT-3PI) has been doing pioneering work in the development and control of spin defects in solid-state materials for quantum applications. USTUTT-3PI has made long-lived nuclear spin qubits in diamond and silicon carbide usable for the demonstration of universal quantum gates and quantum algorithms. USTUTT-3PI has facilities for the generation of quantum bits and for the nanostructuring of photonic quantum devices. They are working on scaling these systems and implementing quantum algorithms such as quantum Fourier transforms or quantum error correction in a scalable manner. The institute is contributing to the testing of scalable spin qubit registers with up to 20 qubits and to the demonstration of error-free logical qubits and their universal logical operations.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Jörg Wrachtrup
Website: 3. Physikalisches Institut | University of Stuttgart

The 5th Institute of Physics has been conducting research on Rydberg atoms for 20 years. Prof. Dr. Tilman Pfau is also the founding director of the Quantum Center (Stuttgart/Ulm) IQST and the initiator and coordinator of the DFG Priority Program SPP1929 GiRyd. Tilman Pfau and Florian Meinert have been working for four years on developing quantum computer hardware based on neutral strontium atoms in optical tweezers arrays, which is currently being expanded into a patented quantum computer platform with up to 400 dynamically movable qubits. The fine-structure qubit in strontium was demonstrated and patented for the first time on this platform. In cooperation with Prof. Hanspeter Büchler, web access was also prepared, which can already be used to program an emulator with up to 30 qubits.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Tilman Pfau
Website: 5. Physikalisches Institut | Universität Stuttgart

The quantum computing team at IAT consists of five people who are involved in activities such as researching quantum algorithms for partial differential equations, circuit optimization, developing frameworks for quantum machine learning, training programs, and knowledge transfer.

Contact: Niclas Schillo 
Website: Forschung – flaQship

Prof. Fedor Jelezko's research group demonstrated applications of NV spin qubits in diamond for quantum computing and quantum simulation, in particular the coherent coupling between NV color centers and nuclear spins and optimal quantum control of a diamond spin quantum register. 

Contact: Prof. Dr. Fedor Jelezko
Website: Institut für Quantenoptik – Universität Ulm

The core topic of the Institute for Complex Quantum Systems, headed by Prof. Joachim Ankerhold, is research into micro- and mesoscopic systems. In particular, the institute is working on ways to control and apply the latter in the field of quantum technologies. To this end, the institute can draw on sophisticated simulation methods for the dynamics of open quantum systems. Furthermore, methods for error mitigation in quantum technologies have recently been developed.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Joachim Ankerhold
Website: Welcome – Universität Ulm

As a theoretical physicist, Prof. Guido Burkard researches quantum computing in solid-state systems, particularly with spins in semiconductors, superconducting circuits, and hybrid quantum systems consisting of semiconducting and superconducting parts. His work also deals with the theoretical foundations of decoherence in quantum systems and its effects on quantum computers, as well as fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Guido Burkard
Website: Burkard Group – Condensed matter theory and quantum information

Prof. Daniel Braun's work focuses on open quantum systems and decoherence, quantum metrology, and the quantification of relevant quantum resources. Recent work has centered on the use of machine learning in quantum metrology and the most efficient characterization of quantum channels.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Daniel Braun
Website: AG Braun | Universität Tübingen

The FZI focuses on the design and quality assurance of software architectures. This includes the modeling of component-based software systems using the Palladio approach and domain-specific modeling methods, as well as the associated analyses for evaluating and predicting quality characteristics such as performance and reliability. In the field of quantum software engineering, the FZI conducts research into the integration of QC solutions into established software development processes and tool support for quantum computing.

Contact: Oliver Dennninger 
Website: Software Engineering – FZI Forschungszentrum Informatik

 Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hellstern is a theoretical physicist with 20 years of experience in banking, particularly quantitative finance, risk modeling, and applied machine learning methods. Since his appointment to the DHBW in 2018, he has been researching the interface between innovative technologies and their implementation in finance, with a particular focus on quantum computing. 

Prof. Dr. Martin Zaefferer teaches in the field of data science. He focuses in particular on model-based optimization for combinatorial problems and the benchmarking of optimization algorithms. Both have already covered the interface to applications and classical methods in the first phase of the KQCBW project in QORA and QORA II. As part of the KQCBW to date, they have been involved in the following publications.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hellstern 
Website: Prof. Dr. Gerhard Hellstern | Verstärkung für den Bereich Data Science | DHBW Ravensburg