Qatalyst was selected for the 2026 Creative Challenge, a collaboration between IonQ and Qollab.
The programme invited developers, designers and creative technologists to propose original, open-source quantum experiments that combine technical rigour with creativity, storytelling and interactivity.
Qatalyst’s selected entry, Quantum Courier, turns vehicle routing with time windows into a five-stage browser puzzle. Players compare a classical planner with a quantum-inspired approach and see how the structure of a decision problem affects which method performs best.
Where does quantum computing genuinely help, and where should classical optimisation remain the default?
Selection provided access to IonQ’s trapped-ion quantum-computing platform, mentorship and the opportunity to benchmark Qatalyst’s optimisation formulations on real hardware.
The work supports Qatalyst’s classical-first, quantum-ready approach: benchmark the available methods honestly and use quantum only where the evidence shows a credible reason.