QUANTUM AI HACKATHON 1.0 - AI agents meet qubits, powered by XpyQ
Quantum AI Hackathon
AI agents meet frontier compute - powered by XpyQ
May 30–31 · Berkeley Gateway HQ · Downtown Berkeley
Presented by Berkeley Gateway Accelerator, XpyQ, Oakland Hardware Meetup, and Informal Spaces:
PLEASE READ: As a PARTICIPANT, please register via Luma, a follow up survey will be sent. OBSERVERS also welcome!
📌 How to Secure Spot as a Participant requires two steps, both are required to be considered:
1️⃣ Apply on Luma to reserve your seat
2️⃣ Fill out the follow up survey, so we can match you to the right track and team
Spots are limited to approx. 10 teams. Apply early.
Introduction
XpyQ is building the compute cloud for the post-GPU era.
As AI moves from prediction to agentic decision-making, builders will need more than commodity infrastructure. They will need access to specialized compute: quantum technology, purpose-built accelerators, and cloud tools that make frontier hardware usable through AI-native software.
This hackathon marks the first private developer preview of XpyQ Cloud: an agentic workspace for writing, running, and benchmarking AI, optimization, and quantitative workloads across emerging compute backends.
For one weekend, outside builders will get early access to XpyQ Cloud, IBM Quantum credits, XpyQ acceleration endpoints, and classical baselines to beat.
The Quantum AI Hackathon is a two-day build sprint for engineers, quant researchers, AI builders, and quantum-curious hackers to prototype real decision systems on frontier compute infrastructure.
Teams can build through the XpyQ Cloud chat agent and Python workspace, or use IBM Quantum and XpyQ hardware endpoints directly when they want lower-level control. Both paths are first-class. Use the platform as your daily driver, or treat it as one tool alongside the raw APIs — your call.
What you’ll build
Four core tracks. Each track will include starter resources, suggested baselines, and access to relevant compute pathways.
Track 01 · Trading & Execution
Build AI systems that reason about market data, execution, and trading decisions.
Teams may explore execution strategies, order book dynamics, market simulation, or agentic trading workflows.
Track 02 · Portfolio & Alpha
Build systems for portfolio construction, signal generation, forecasting, or asset allocation.
Teams may explore optimization, risk-adjusted returns, market signals, or hybrid quantum/classical approaches to investment decision-making.
Track 03 · Risk, Fraud & Compliance
Build systems that identify, measure, or reduce risk across financial workflows.
Teams may explore fraud detection, anomaly detection, tail-risk estimation, transaction graphs, or regulatory workflows.
Track 04 · Applied AI & Agentic Systems
Build AI systems that retrieve, reason, plan, or act across complex data and workflows.
Teams may explore RAG pipelines, AI agents, workflow automation, simulation, time-series analysis, decision support, or domain-specific copilots.
Teams are encouraged to compare their approaches against classical baselines wherever possible. The best projects will show clear thinking, honest measurement, and a working prototype — not just a clever idea.
Bonus Challenge Areas
Teams may also explore adjacent decision workloads such as:
Supply chain scheduling
Energy grid and battery dispatch
Graph intelligence
Scientific or optimization-heavy simulations
These bonus areas are especially relevant for builders interested in applying the same compute patterns beyond finance.
Format
Prep week · Async via Slack, starting May 23
Participants will receive:
Primers on market microstructure, quantum basics, and XpyQ Cloud
Environment setup instructions
Track briefs
Baseline notebooks
API and access details
Arrive Saturday with your environment configured and your first baseline ready to run.
Saturday, May 30 · 9 AM – 9 PM
Doors open
Opening keynote
Track briefings
Build Block 1
Lunch + mentor office hours
Build Block 2
Checkpoint demos at 5:30 PM
Build Block 3
Code freeze at 9 PM
Sunday, May 31 · 9 AM – 12:30 PM
Final submission upload
Team presentations
10-minute demos + 5-minute judge Q&A
Closed deliberation
Scores sealed until the awards dinner
Winners will be announced at the formal awards dinner the following Wednesday.
Awards
🥇 Grand Prize: $2,000 + awards dinner invite
🥈 Runner-Up: awards dinner invite
🏅 Track Champions ×4: best project per track
⚛️ Quantum Advantage Award: most rigorous demonstration of quantum or hybrid lift over a classical baseline
⚡ Specialized Compute Award: best use of XpyQ acceleration or nontraditional compute infrastructure
🤖 Best Applied AI System: most impactful AI, RAG, or agentic workflow
💡 Most Creative Approach: judges’ discretionary award
Who should apply
This event is for builders who want to put frontier infrastructure to a real test.
We are especially excited to meet:
Quant researchers
ML and AI engineers
Quantum or hardware-curious builders
Product-minded founders
Researchers working on optimization, finance, AI infrastructure, or scientific computing
Observers, investors, and sponsors are also welcome.
How to participate
Spots are limited to approximately 10 teams.
To be considered as a participant:
Apply on Luma to reserve your seat
Complete the follow-up survey so we can match you to the right track and team
Teams may apply together or be matched from the accepted pool.
Presented by
Berkeley Gateway Accelerator
A venture accelerator for frontier capital and deep-tech commercialization, based in Downtown Berkeley.
XpyQ
Building the cloud layer for next-generation AI and quantitative workloads across emerging compute backends, including purpose-built acceleration hardware.
Oakland Hardware Meetup
A hands-on hardware community across the Bay Area.
Informal Spaces
Flexible venue and community infrastructure for technical events.
Prep materials distributed one week prior · IP participation agreement required at registration