Theory & Applications Team

As any emerging technology, quantum computing strongly relies on fundamental research and development activities. Constant progress needs to happen in the design of both the devices and the algorithms in order to improve the technology and maximize its benefits.

Team Objectives and Work Description_

Works actively towards the development of our coherent quantum annealer by both understanding and advancing the theory and techniques behind the adiabatic model of computation and superconducting qubits.
Identifies and understands the relevant industry use-cases in order to develop tailored quantum algorithms in order to tackle our clients’ needs.

Team members_

Marta P Estarellas

Senior Quantum Engineer

Marta focuses on the design of new techniques to reduce the qubit overhead required to encode complex problems into a quantum annealer; the simulation of quantum many-body systems and the study of its quantum information processing abilities; the study of representations, compilation and optimization methods for quantum algorithms; and the development of metrics and benchmarks to assess and compare the power of quantum devices. She is also interested in identifying complex problems in quantum chemistry that could be efficiently solved by quantum annealers.

She is actively collaborating with the University of York (UK) and the National Institute of Informatics (Tokyo). She is also known for her passion for craft beer, dogs and japanese food.

Ana Palacios

Quantum Engineer

Ana is developing techniques to aid in the process of adiabatic quantum computation, as well as new encodings of problems within the framework of annealing that make explicit use of entanglement. She is also studying the use of a superconducting qubit network as a quantum reservoir computer to filter out noise, and her interest in the interface between condensed matter and quantum computation has her trying to understand one through the lens of the other.

When it comes to the classical realm, theater, hiking and tomatoes are among her favorite things.

Matthias Werner

Quantum Engineer

Matthias is interested in the intersection of machine learning and quantum computation, which includes variational quantum algorithms, quantum machine learning and classical machine learning applied in quantum technology. Furthermore, he investigates the role of quantum phase transitions in adiabatic quantum computing.

In his downtime, Matthias enjoys playing volleyball and the occasional round of padel, as well as the piano and the guitar.

Jordi Riu

Quantum Engineer

Jordi studies the capabilities of quantum computation to tackle classical optimization problems, with specific focus on those that arise from large-scale real-world logistics challenges. This includes not only looking for suitable formulations of the problem to make its dimension treatable with near-term quantum devices, but also exploring hybrid classical-quantum optimization algorithms based on quantum circuit design through reinforcement learning techniques.

Quantum stuff aside, Jordi enjoys playing chess and sports in general. He listens to music non-stop, but restrains from dancing while doing it.

Chris Hensel

Quantum Engineer

Chris focuses on studying, simulating and designing superconducting quantum circuits for quantum annealing. He works with all teams at the intersection of theory and experiments, bringing them together to pursue a flux qubit based coherent quantum annealer.

He is a collaborator at UAB, supervised by Prof. Verònica Ahufinger for Quantum Optics Theory at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Dr Pol Forn-Díaz at the Quantum Computing Technology Group (Institute for High Energy Physics).

Among other things, he likes hiking, padel and nachos.

Annalisa De Lorenzis

Quantum Engineer

Annalisa is a first year PhD student at IFAE Barcelona and obtained a fellowship from AGAUR-Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, as an Industrial PhD working in the theory team of Qilimanjaro.

She explores quantum machine learning algorithms to improve the capabilities of classical approaches.

She aims at identifying a potential quantum advantage in the intersection of machine learning and high-energy physics using, as a benchmark task, the classification of images collected from the Hyper-K detector.

Among other things, she likes cake design and chess.

Jan Nogué

Quantum Engineer

Jan is a MSc student in Quantum Science and Technology at the University of Barcelona. He is primarily interested in the industry’s applications of quantum annealing and quantum machine learning. He is helping us to develop quantum-ready solutions for our clients.

Outside the quantum world, he competes in beach volleyball with his twin brother.

Josep Bosch

Quantum Engineer

Josep studied a BSc in Physics and a MSc in Quantum Science and Technologies at University of Barcelona. He carried out his Master Thesis with Qilimanjaro’s Theory team, where they explored efficient encodings for solving logistics problems with quantum computers.
Currently Josep is working on algorithms and applications of quantum computing for industry, with the goal of solving large real-world problems with quantum devices.

Outside the office, he enjoys activities such as climbing, horse-riding or watching Formula 1.