The Government of Navarre Celebrates World Quantum Day with an Event for VET Students and Teachers
Navarre joined today in the celebration of World Quantum Day (World Quantum Technology Day) with an event aimed at students and teachers of Vocational Training, intended for training and talent growth within the quantum computing ecosystem. The event was organised by NASERTIC, a public company attached to the Department of the Presidency and Equality, within the framework of the Quantum Spain project, of which it is part as one of the nodes of the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES).
It is worth noting that quantum computing is a computing paradigm different from that of classical computing. It is a computing model still under development, but it is expected to have a transformational nature in the coming years and applications are anticipated in multiple sectors, such as chemistry, where it could contribute to the development of new medicines; as well as finance, healthcare, logistics or process optimisation, as it will make it possible to work with a greater amount of information simultaneously.
The event took place at the headquarters of the IRIS Navarra Digital Innovation Hub, located in the El Sario building at the Public University of Navarre (UPNA), in Pamplona / Iruña. It was attended by students from the specialised Vocational Training courses in Cybersecurity at CIP Donapea, and Artificial Intelligence and Big Data at CIP María Ana Sanz.
At the opening, the Director General for Energy, Business R&D&I and Entrepreneurship, Garbiñe Basterra, wished to highlight the effort being made to promote “various initiatives, from the financing of research to the creation of new services and programmes. These efforts not only foster innovation, but also position Navarre as a benchmark at the technological forefront in this emerging field”.
For his part, the Managing Director of NASERTIC, Luis Campos, in charge of closing the event, stated that “at NASERTIC we believe that the technological future begins with young talent. Bringing quantum computing closer to Vocational Training students is not only a commitment to innovation, but also to a society better prepared for digital challenges. This event reflects the value of collaboration between institutions, educational centres and public bodies, and reinforces our commitment to building, from Navarre, a solid and competitive quantum ecosystem within the Spanish Supercomputing Network”.
An event to advance quantum programming
The event began with the presentation of the Quantum Spain project, its objectives and lines of work, as well as the presentation of the details of the participation and role of NASERTIC and the Urederra Supercomputing Cluster in it, delivered by Izaskun Echeverría, Head of the Distributed Systems Area.
Afterwards, a theoretical and practical workshop introducing the field of quantum computing was held, delivered by Javier Berrueta and Nahia Iriarte from NASERTIC, in which participants faced various challenges through which they learned how some of the basic quantum gates work.
Subsequently, a joint and simultaneous practical session was carried out for the nodes that had been celebrating this Day during the morning. This session had been designed by Quantum Spain and its aim was to help participants become familiar with the concepts of entanglement and interference. Each centre worked independently on the same resources and the event ended with a videoconference in which all nodes participated to share the results of the previously held workshop.
The participating centres in this initiative that connected were, in addition to NASERTIC, the Galicia Supercomputing Centre, the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands, the University of Cantabria and the Extremadura Foundation for Computing and Advanced Technologies (COMPUTAEX).
About Quantum Spain
Quantum Spain is a project promoted by the Ministry of Economic Affairs through SEDIA (the Secretary of State for Digitalisation and Artificial Intelligence) and funded with Recovery Funds (PRTR). A total of 27 research institutions collaborate in the project for the development of quantum and AI algorithms and applications, including the nodes of the Spanish Supercomputing Network, to which the public company NASERTIC belongs, thanks to the support of the Department of Industry, Ecological and Digital Business Transition of the Government of Navarre.
Quantum Spain aims to promote and finance a competitive and comprehensive quantum computing infrastructure in Spain. This project will provide the current national quantum ecosystem with the necessary tools to develop a solid scientific and technological fabric around quantum computing and its applications in Artificial Intelligence.
Source: navarra.es
