At AFQC 2026, we are bringing together experts from across the quantum computing ecosystem at a participatory community conference. The programme starts on Wednesday at 11 a.m., preceded by a gentle warm-up in the Network Café. The programme ends on Thursday after lunch with a cool-down back at the Network Café.
Please note: Participation in AFQC 2026 is only possible with prior registration and confirmation of participation. We will send out the confirmation of participation in good time before the event. Register here for the AFQC 2026.
Some quick updates
⏱️ We’re going to close the event registration in a week. So, if haven’t made up your mind: Register now! It’s free of charge. https://qci.dlr.de/afqc2026
🕘 Doors open at 8, our Quantum Café at 9 and the program starts at 11. On the second day we open at 8, our Café at 8:30 and the program starts at 9:30.
🍿 We’ll close the first day with a panel discussion by Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf e.V. and a quantum pub quiz by our friend Jan Werum – and then: Party! There’s dinner, an open bar and a beautiful outside area to relax and network (or win the pub quiz).
🍲 There will be light breakfast, lunch and dinner + an open café and a bar, all free of charge. 🌿 We’re veggie and vegan friendly & please tell us if you have special requirements
🗣️ The primary event language is English (but to tbh. we just want you to talk, talk, talk 🙂
🔋 We try to create an event that is accessible for everyone. If you have special requirements, please tell us, beforehand or at the event, so we can take better care of it: live@qci.dlr.de (and please give us feedback if we messed up so we can get better).
🅿️ There’s a limited amount of parking spaces at the event. Please consider using public transportation to come to our event. The closest bus & metro station is U72 Niederheid.
👥 AFQC 2026 is all about talking with each other and getting involved. That’s why our Quantum Café is always open and why we offer meet-ups during the first and second day, see agenda: https://qci.dlr.de/afqc2026#agenda
🛜 There’s free wifi for everyone, so if you do need to take that conf call or finish that paper you can do that at our Open Quantum Café.
🪞 Do you want to show of your company’s products or team’s breakthroughs? We invite you to bring small exhibits or presentations that you can show to people at our big table in the Quantum Café (but we really want to keep AFQC as a place to share not sell ideas)
Agenda
This agenda is regularly updated and expanded.
Wednesday, 27. May 2026
| Time | Stage Guidance & inspiration | Salon Discuss big ideas | Workshop Share your expertise | Business Case Share expertise | Pitch Deck Show off great ideas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00 | Open Quantum Café Networking Coffee, snacks, nice people 210 min | ||||
| 11:30 | Intro Intro to AFQC 2026 Robert Axmann, DLR QCI · Daniel Stadler, EIN Quantum NRW · Host: Katharina Menne 30 min | ||||
| 12:00 | Salon Talk Creating a European Network for Quantum Computing Software Robert Wille, MQSC × Paolo Viviani, LINKS Foundation 60 min | Workshop Quantum Chemistry Between VQE and Fault Tolerant Birger Horstmann, DLR TT 60 min | Lessons Learned Balancing Quantum Advantage and Business Needs Corey O'Meara, E.ON 60 min | Pitch & Q&A Assessing Practical Speedups Shawn Skelton, Uni Hannover 60 min | |
| 13:00 | Lunchbreak & Meet-ups Business Lunch Light Lunch in our Open Quantum Café and Outside 60 min | ||||
| 14:00 | Salon Talk Providing Infrastructure for Deep Tech Start-ups Christoph Gehlen, Technologie Zentrum Dortmund × Alain Pierrot, DLR QCI 60 min | Coding Workshop Eclipse Qrisp for Real-World Applications Sebastian Bock, Fraunhofer FOKUS 60 min | Best practice How to: Aufträge von öffentlichen Auftraggebern (in German) Stephan Manns & Stephan Goller, DLR QCI Procurement 60 min | Hands-on Implementing Applications with the QCI Connect SDK Elisabeth Lobe, DLR SC × Gary Schmiedinghoff, DLR SC 60 min | |
| 15:00 | Salon Talk Quantum Computing Meets the Law (de/en) Jana Jentzsch & Gerhard Deiters, BHO Legal × Hjørdis Petersen, DLR QCI 60 min | Coding Workshop From Business Use Cases to Hardware-Ready Quantum Circuits Nikola Strah × Nadav Ben-Ami, Classiq Technologies 60 min | Best practice From Lab to Product: Crossing the Valley of Death in Deep Tech Anja Bräuning & Christian Piltz, EleQtron 60 min | Pitches & Ideas From estimating resources to compiling quantum algorithms for chemistry Oumarou Oumarou & Christian Gogolin, Covestro 60 min | |
| 16:00 | Welcome Address State Minister Ina Brandes Ministry of Culture and Science of NRW 10 min | ||||
| 16:30 | Salon Talk The Next Challenge in Quantum Chemistry Christian Gogolin, Covestro × Birger Horstmann, DLR TT 60 min | Hands-on Workshop Getting started with Analog & Hybrid Computing on the REDAC Lucas Wetzel & Daniel Thuerck, anabrid 60 min | Lessons Learned From Quantum Start-up to Scale-up: Business Development Playbook to build on Eda Sorani, Planqc 60 min | Coding Workshop Optimizing Quantum Applications on Quantum Hardware César A. Rodríguez Rosario, Commutator Studios 60 min | |
| 17:30 | Break Cooldown & Group Photo 6:20 pm group photo 60 min | ||||
| 18:30 | DigiSpecial Panel Talk European Sovereignty with Quantum Technologies Fritzi Köhler-Geib, Deutsche Bundesbank × Harald Summa, DE-CIX × Henrik Hahn, Evonik, EIN Quantum NRW × Robert Axmann, DLR QCI 60 min | ||||
| 19:30 | All Hands Wrap-up Robert Axmann, DLR QCI × Daniel Stadler, EIN Quantum NRW × Host: Katharina Menne 15 min | ||||
| 20:00 | Error Bar Party Networking · Pub Quiz · Party 180 min | ||||
| 23:00 | Doors close | ||||
08:00
11:30
12:00
13:00
14:00
15:00
16:00
16:30
17:30
18:30
19:30
20:00
23:00
Thursday, 28. May 2026
| Time | Stage Guidance & inspiration | Salon Discuss big ideas | Workshop Share your expertise | Business Case Share expertise | Pitch Deck Show off great ideas |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 08:00 | Open Quantum Café Networking Coffee, snacks, nice people 90 min | ||||
| 09:45 | Welcome to Day 2 Robert Axmann, DLR QCI × Daniel Stadler, EIN Quantum NRW · Host: Katharina Menne 15 min | ||||
| 10:00 | Salon Talk Quantum Futures in Dialogue: Innovation, Security, and Sustainable Development Rebecca Mossop, DLR MI × Matthias C. Kettemann, Uni Innsbruck · UNESCO × Adrian Schmidt, KIT-EDU 60 min | Coding Workshop Fault-Tolerant Quantum Error Correction Sascha Heußen, neqxt 60 min | Hands-on Workshop Fixing Our Supply Chain: How can we Cooperatively Overcome Sourcing Challenges? Jakob Buchheim, DLR QT-IMN 60 min | Impact Workshop FullStaQD: Full Stack Quantum Computing for Germany Philipp Kunst & Max Schweikart, Fraunhofer IAO 60 min | |
| 11:00 | Salon Talk Challenges that drive innovation Susann Lüdtke, L.I.A. × Tobias Tenner, BDB 60 min | Workshop Application-driven Benchmarking: What Is Quantum Good For? Benedikt Poggel × Jeanette Miriam Lorenz, Fraunhofer IKS 60 min | Best practice From Curiosity to Capability: QC Adoption in Practice Natalia Stolyarchuk, Bitkom 60 min | Presentation & Q&A Governance for Quantum Technologies Matthias Kettemann, Innsbruck Quantum Ethics Lab 60 min | |
| 12:00 | Welcome Address State Minister & Deputy Minister-President Mona Neubaur Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Protection and Energy NRW 10 min | ||||
| 12:10 | All Hands Handover & Group Photo Group Photo 12:20 Robert Axmann, DLR QCI × Daniel Stadler, EIN Quantum NRW × Host: Katharina Menne 20 min | ||||
| 12:30 | Lunchbreak & Meet-ups Business Lunch Light Lunch in our Open Quantum Café and Outside 90 min | ||||
| 14:00 | Meet-up at Quantum Café QC×Mobility · QCI Connect users · HPC QC Hybrid · Communication Specialists · Quantum Fellowship Program · etc. Gary Schmiedinghoff · Matthias Zimmermann · Francisca Gois · Felix Knoke 90 min | Meet-up Let's meet: Quantum State Initiatives Philipp Ranitzsch 90 min | Meet-up Meet-up Optimiziation Community R.S.V.P. Elisabeth Lobe, DLR SC 90 min | Meet-up Fraunhofer × DLR Matchmaking R.S.V.P. 90 min | Meet-up Quantum Future Ann-Kristin Rink 90 min |
| 15:30 | Doors close | ||||
08:00
09:45
10:00
11:00
12:00
12:10
12:30
14:00
15:30
How the AFQC 2026 works
AFQC 2026 is designed entirely for participation. To this end, we have created spaces in which various types of collaboration are possible:
– Workshop & Business Case are designed entirely for workshops. Here we code or tackle specific joint challenges.
– The Salon brings two hosts and their audience into dialogue in a Salon Talk: This is where we want to twist and turn the big questions.
– The Pitch Deck is the place to present big ideas, pitch companies and services or present research approaches. Please register here.
From AFQC 2025 to AFQC 2026
We learnt a lot at the last AFQC 2025 in Munich: We have challenges in common that we can only successfully tackle together; there is great interest in not only naming these challenges, but also developing concrete solutions for them. And: it takes more than a white paper to bring all of this together and move it forward.
After taking a bird’s eye view of the ecosystem at AFQC 2025, we are therefore going deeper at AFQC 2026 and bringing experts from the entire ecosystem into direct dialogue: in a wide range of workshops, salon talks and meet-ups designed to exchange knowledge, build bridges and get to the root of the problems.
This is no trivial task for an event that wants to address and involve the entire ecosystem. That’s why we made three decisions:
1
AFQC 2026 focuses even more strongly on participation. We are achieving this with a programme that is both broader and more specialised and with a concept that is more focused on collaboration. With meet-ups during the breaks, we are also bringing existing communities together and creating docking points. Instead of keynotes and panel talks, there will be workshops by experts for experts.
2
One day for AFQC 2026 is not enough. By spreading the programme over two days, we bring more breadth and depth to the programme and, above all, enable more in-depth exchange between the participants. By spreading out the morning of the first day and the afternoon of the second day, we are making it easier to travel to and from the event on both days. AFQC 2026 starts on Wednesday at 11 a.m. and ends on Thursday after lunch. However, if you arrive earlier or stay longer, you are welcome to join us in our networking café (which is also a good place to work at any time).
3
The evening programme of AFQC 2026 has to pop. Simply opening a bar after a day full of exertion (workshops) and deprivation (lunch portion sizes) is not enough. That’s why we’re creating new good reasons to celebrate with us with programme items in the evening. And by integrating the local network of Digitale Stadt Düsseldorf, we are bringing even more relevant people to the AFQC, even from outside the network.
