On May 15, 2024, Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s (HBKU) College of Science and Engineering announced a partnership with Australian quantum software company Q-CTRL to develop quantum workforce capabilities in Qatar. The announcement was made during the Qatar Economic Forum hosted by Bloomberg, where Q-CTRL’s CEO, Professor Michael J. Biercuk, was a speaker.
Under the agreement, HBKU’s Qatar Center for Quantum Computing (QC2) will integrate Q-CTRL’s Black Opal educational platform into its academic curriculum and executive education programs. Q-CTRL’s Fire Opal performance-management software will also be made available to researchers. According to the joint announcement, the partnership includes internship opportunities and joint collaborative research between academic and industry leaders, with rollout of the software tools planned for the latter half of 2024.
Dr. Saif Al-Kuwari, Director of QC2, said the partnership represented a milestone in efforts to enhance academia-industry collaborations that expand research capabilities in quantum computing.