QUANTUM AI HACKATHON - AI agents meet qubits, powered by XpyQ
⚛️🤖 Quantum AI Hackathon — Where AI Agents Meet Qubits
Build Next-Generation Quantitative Trading Systems across HFT, Mid-Frequency Trading, Risk & AI Foundation Models
Presented by Berkeley Gateway Accelerator, XpyQ, Oakland Hardware Meetup, and Informal Spaces — this is an intensive, in-person weekend challenge bringing together quant researchers, quantum algorithm engineers, ML practitioners, and AI model builders to prototype the next generation of trading systems.
📍 Berkeley Gateway HQ — Downtown Berkeley
🚨 How to Secure Your Spot as a Participant
Two steps are both required to be considered:
1️⃣ Apply on Luma to reserve your seat → Register here
2️⃣ Complete the follow-up survey sent after registration — this allows organizers to match you to the right track and team
Spots are limited to approximately 10 teams. Apply early.
👀 Observers are also welcome!
🌐 Why This Matters Now
The next era of quantitative finance is not classical. U.S. quant funds suffered their worst momentum selloff in three years in early 2026 — dropping 2.8% in just two weeks. Meanwhile, the quantum-AI risk hedge platform market is expanding at a 28.5% CAGR, projected to reach $10.71B by 2030. The window to build domain expertise before institutional standardization narrows closes within the next 2–3 years.
McKinsey projects that 50% of major financial institutions will deploy hybrid quantum trading systems by 2028. This hackathon is a live preview of the teams building that future.
🏁 Four Frontier Competition Tracks
⚡ Track 01 — High-Frequency Execution
Deploy Quantum Reinforcement Learning (QRL) agents on live Limit Order Book (LOB) data. Your benchmark: beat the LSTM/Transformer baseline.
📈 Track 02 — Mid-Frequency Alpha Generation
Leverage QAOA/VQE portfolio optimization across 50–500 assets. Your benchmark: beat Markowitz + CVXPY.
🛡️ Track 03 — Risk & Regulatory Compliance
Build hybrid CVaR circuits combined with quantum Monte Carlo methods. Your benchmark: beat classical historical VaR.
🧠 Track 04 — AI Foundation Models (Cross-cutting)
Fine-tune Chronos, TimesFM, or Kronos, or deploy an agentic LLM pipeline. Your benchmark: beat zero-shot generic TSFMs.
👤 Who Should Attend?
📊 Quant Researchers & Algorithmic Traders
Classical factor crowding is structurally fragile — quantum-enhanced strategies tackle regime failure from angles classical models simply cannot reach. Build systems judged on real metrics: Sharpe ratio, CVaR, information coefficient, and execution P&L.
🔬 Quantum Engineers & ML Practitioners
Work against real financial data — not toy benchmarks — with full hardware access to IBM Quantum (Heron chip), IonQ, AWS Braket, and D-Wave, plus frameworks including PyTorch, JAX, LangChain, and LlamaIndex. Results are evaluated by industry professionals who prioritize reproducible outcomes.
💼 Investors & Hedge Fund Guests
Join as an observer, judge, or sponsor. A formal Awards Dinner the following Wednesday provides a structured opportunity for industry guests to engage with top-performing teams.
📅 Event Agenda
🗓️ Prep Week — 7 Days Prior (Async via Slack)
| Day | Topic |
|---|---|
| Monday | Market microstructure primer: LOB dynamics, tick data, order types |
| Tuesday | Quantum computing primer: QAOA, VQE, QUBO, NISQ-era constraints |
| Wednesday | AI foundation models for finance: Chronos, TimesFM, Kronos — fine-tuning vs. zero-shot |
| Thursday | Quantum ML: QRL, QSVM, VQC, quantum kernel methods |
| Friday | Dataset access, API keys (IBM Quantum, Alpaca, Polygon.io), track briefings |
Arrive Day 1 with your environment configured and classical baselines already running.
🔨 Day 1 — 12-Hour Build Sprint
- 9:00 AM — Doors Open
- 10:00 AM — Opening Keynote: Quantum + AI for Hedge Funds — The 2026 Landscape
- 11:30 AM — Build Block 1: Core algorithm prototyping, quantum circuit design, model architecture
- 1:30 PM — Lunch + Mentor Office Hours
- 2:00 PM — Build Block 2: Backtesting, benchmarking, hyperparameter tuning
- 5:30 PM — Checkpoint Demos (5 min/team, non-judged) + Mentor Feedback
- 6:00 PM — Build Block 3: Integration, result validation, final documentation
- 9:00 PM — 🔒 Code Freeze — all repositories locked
🎤 Day 2 — Presentations
- 9:00 AM — Doors Open, final submission upload & presentation setup
- 10:30 AM — Team Presentations: 10-min demo + 5-min judge Q&A per team
- 12:00 PM — Judge Deliberation (closed session)
- 12:30 PM — Participants dismissed; scores sealed until the Awards Dinner
🏆 Awards & Prizes
| Award | Prize |
|---|---|
| 🥇 Grand Prize | $2,000 + exclusive invite to Formal Awards Dinner |
| 🥈 Runner-Up | Second overall + exclusive invite to Formal Awards Dinner |
| 🏅 Track Champions ×4 | Best project per track: HFT, MFT, Risk & Compliance, AI Foundation Models |
| ⚛️ Quantum Advantage Award | Most rigorous demonstration of quantum speedup or accuracy lift over classical baseline |
| 🤖 Best Foundation Model | Most impactful FinTSFM or agentic LLM deployment |
| 💡 Most Creative Approach | Judges' discretionary prize for novel problem framing |
🛠️ Infrastructure & Tools
⚛️ Quantum Hardware & SDKs
IBM Quantum (Heron chip) · IonQ · AWS Braket · D-Wave
Qiskit · PennyLane · Amazon Braket SDK · D-Wave Ocean
🤖 AI & Foundation Models
Chronos · TimesFM · Lag-Llama · Kronos · MOIRAI-2
LangChain · LlamaIndex · Hugging Face Transformers
📊 Classical ML & Data
PyTorch · TensorFlow · scikit-learn · JAX
Polygon.io · Alpaca Markets · yFinance · Simulated LOB tick feeds
⚡ Execution Simulation
Backtrader · Zipline-reloaded · Custom HFT sandbox
🤝 Partner Organizations
- Berkeley Gateway Accelerator — Venture accelerator focused on frontier capital and deep tech commercialization, based in Downtown Berkeley
- XpyQ — Building next-generation quantum-AI infrastructure for quantitative finance applications
- Oakland Hardware Meetup — A Bay Area community of hardware engineers, makers, and builders advancing hands-on technical collaboration
- Informal Spaces — Flexible venue and community infrastructure for technical events, workshops, and collaborative builds
📝 Important Notes
- Teams may self-pair or be matched from the accepted-but-unmatched applicant pool
- Prep materials distributed one week prior via Slack
- An IP participation agreement is required at registration
Register to See Address
Get directionsScan with your camera – the event opens in the Somo app.
