Time to take a brief look back at SQA Delft 2025, which we co-organized with QuTech and IQM. We highlight our favorite talks and side events, as well as some of the little extras that made this event special. If you couldn’t make it this year, make sure to watch back the recorded scientific sessions on the SQA YouTube channel and join for SQA 2026 in Gothenburg!
Excited attendees of the SQA Delft 2025 conference.
With more than 350 attendees, 45 speakers and 27 supporters, the third edition of the Superconducting Qubits and Algorithms Conference was a success. For those in the community that couldn’t join the event, we share some of our favorite talks, as well as pictures and links, so you can also get an impression of this exceptional gathering.
Our favorite talks
The SQA scientific sessions were packed with interesting talks. To help you select which ones to watch first, we suggest our favorite talk of each day.
SQA Delft 2025 was not the first conference where Google Quantum AI explained the innovative ways in which they are working to scale to error-corrected quantum computers. But since this is a make-or-break moment for the quantum computing industry, it is worth highlighting their talk on the use of color codes for quantum error correction.
Nathan Lacroix (Google Quantum AI): Scaling and logic in the color code on a superconducting quantum processor
Monday 25 Aug 2025 – link to recording
Fabrication engineer Matvey Finkel presents experimental results on a flip chip architecture without Indium bumps. This research is timed well, with the quantum industry exploring the use of chiplets for superconducting QPUs.
Matvey Finkel (TU Delft): Self-aligning hard stops for a flip-chip architecture
Tuesday 26 Aug 2025 – link to recording
Prof. Morten Kjaergaard leads the Superconducting Qubit Pilot Line at NQCP, an ambitious quantum computer development programme at the University of Copenhagen. He gives the audience an unparalleled look into the large variations in coherence times at unexpectedly short time scales, including the new methods developed to be able to perform these measurements. For a field that often reports coherence times as fixed device or system properties, this was a wake-up call.
Morten Kjaergaard (Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen): Real-time benchmarking and sub-second calibration with state-of-the-art quantum processors
Wednesday 27 Aug 2025 – link to recording
Rigetti Computing has been working on clever ways to tackle the yield problem in quantum chips with many qubits. They were one of the first companies to publicly include chiplets in their development roadmap and are now experts in connecting quantum chiplets properly and assembling them into a larger QPU.
Andrew Bestwick (Rigetti Computing): Rigetti’s scalable quantum processor architecture with chiplets and inter-modular tunable couplers
Thursday 28 Aug 2025 – link to recording
Our favorite side events
To inspire the SQA attendees and suggest topics to the community for discussion, an Ask Me Anything session was organized. Although initiated as a celebration of his retirement, prof. David DiVincenzo insisted on having people from the field with different perspectives on stage. This resulted in an interactive panel touching on a myriad of fascinating topics, like how surfaces and magnetic materials are “evil”, how it might be impossible to define “useful quantum computing” and how people working on different qubit modalities or in different fields of engineering can avoid “silos”.
David DiVincenzo, Anne-Marije Zwerver, Alessandro Bruno and Frank Wilhelm-Mauch: Ask Me Anything session
Monday 25 Aug 2025 – Link to recording
After the launch of their new Qblox Qubit Lab, Qblox opened its doors for dinner and drinks at their new facility. Many SQA attendees gratefully made use of that after their tour to QuTech, lab visit at the House of Quantum or city boat tour organized by Zurich Instruments. What a great way to show the adaptability and hospitality of the Delft quantum ecosystem!
The traditional conference dinner took place in the New Church in Delft. Since the food was designed to be eaten with one utensil, attendees could walk around the historical site. We hope that many people made use of the opportunity to network, while learning about the first official translation of the Bible in Dutch or the traditional burials the Dutch royal family in the Church.
Our favorite extras
SQA sets itself apart in its care for attendees. Is it our European values? Is it the community support or small scale of the conference? Whatever it is, the SQA organization has been able to provide a great experience so far.
Let’s give a few examples of traditions and new ideas at SQA Delft 2025:
- Food and beverages: Physics conferences can be stressful and exhausting, so good and free food, beverages and coffee are essential.
- Summer terrace: For a conference at the end of August, we felt like attendees should be able to spend some time outside. Supported by restaurant Moodz, people could drink their coffee, have meetings or just relax on the summer terrace, while making use of the free wifi of the venue.
- Bikes: The best way to move around in most Dutch cities is by bike. All 100 bikes that were made available to attendees were returned on time, a testament to the careful and responsible SQA community.
- Volunteers: To help guide attendees, set up posters and fill conference bags, volunteers were essential. Unlike some other conferences, all volunteers came from the local quantum ecosystem.
- Poster prize: A new idea introduced by the SQA Scientific Committee was to evaluate all presented posters and award a prize to three of them based on content, impact and presentation. This was a great way to give a platform to young researchers.
- Travel grants: Just like in previous editions, several poster presenters received grants. These made it financially possible for them to make it to Delft.
Our favorite community
Besides scientific talks and side events, participants contributed poster sessions, workshops, booths in the exhibitor space. This brings ideas from different fields of research, different countries and different industries into the SQA community.
An extra thanks to all supporters of the event OpenSuperQPlus, Quantum Machines, Qblox, Zurich Instruments, QuantWare, QuantrolOx, Maybell Quantum, Qruise, QTIndu, Bluefors, Delft Circuits, Intermodulation Products, SCALINQ, YQuantum, kiutra, KEYCOM, Coax Co., HQUBIT, Arctic Instruments, VASTA, AQSolotl, Oxford Instruments NanoScience, Qnity and Q-CTRL. Not only did their financial support make many parts of the conference possible, but product demos and industry insights in scientific sessions and workshops help the community to develop and deploy superconducting qubits and algorithms at scale!
