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Edinburgh’s Quantum Software Lab (QSL) marked its third anniversary alongside the 2026 Quantum Fringe, a programme of 16 events spanning quantum-computing research, industry collaboration, education and public engagement, according to a sponsored Physics World feature published 1 October 2026. The feature presents the gathering as a way to bring people together around quantum science—and QSL’s work as an effort to develop software and collaborate with hardware providers—not as evidence that quantum computers have already delivered practical advantage.
What is the Quantum Fringe?
The Quantum Fringe is a festival programme bringing together events organized by different groups for audiences that include researchers, students, government and industry scientists, and the public. Physics World says the festival debuted in 2025 to mark UNESCO’s International Year of Quantum Science and Technology; that connection is reported by the sponsored feature and is not independently confirmed here.
For 2026, the feature reports 16 events. Their range reflects the different questions quantum technology raises: how to communicate securely, correct computational errors, assess hardware, explore applications, and explain quantum ideas to people outside the field.
Research and industry events
- Integrated Quantum Networks (IQN): A two-day event on authentication for future quantum communications.
- QCi3: A workshop examining quantum-computing applications and integration challenges in defence.
- TartanQEC: Organized by the Universities of Edinburgh and Strathclyde, this workshop focused on practical quantum error correction. The feature says it welcomed more than 120 researchers from the UK and Europe, with a keynote by Andreas Wallraff of ETH Zürich on error-correction schemes for superconducting quantum computers.
- QSL’s verification and benchmarking workshop: Hardware vendors and researchers discussed how quantum systems can be checked and compared.
- AIMday: Companies and academics explored industry problems. The feature reports more than 60 participants.
Education and public engagement
- A three-day summer school introduced high-school students to quantum-computing basics and coding.
- A week-long quantum-informatics event on the Isle of Skye served postgraduate students and early-career researchers.
- “Quantum Worlds,” a music-and-poetry performance, explored quantum concepts for a general audience.
Elham Kashefi, QSL director and NQCC chief scientist, described the festival as belonging to everyone who takes part, from researchers and government and industry scientists to school and university students. She said each event offered an opportunity for the community to come together because “no-one can do this alone.”
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What does Edinburgh’s Quantum Software Lab do?
QSL is a University of Edinburgh lab working across quantum applications, algorithms, foundational theory and software. Its focus, as described in the feature, is not simply on building quantum hardware: it also develops software and methods for working with machines made by different providers.
Kashefi put the distinction this way: “Quantum computing is almost always told as a hardware story, but a machine only matters if it can give you an answer that is useful and that can be trusted. That is a software problem.” That is a statement of the lab’s perspective and research goal, not proof that any particular quantum system has achieved a useful advantage.
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Reported growth and partnerships
The sponsored feature says QSL launched in 2023 with around 15 members and had grown to almost 100 researchers by its publication. It separately describes more than 70 researchers working across the lab’s subject areas. These are differently scoped figures in the feature, so they should not be treated as a single precise headcount.
The feature describes a strategic partnership with the National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC) and says its testbed facilities offered seven platforms across leading qubit modalities. It also reports that QATCH (Quantum Advantage TurboCHarger) is a £20 million UK government programme running over four years, led by QSL, to develop tools, methods and systems aimed at useful and evidenced quantum-computing impact. These funding, facility and programme details are claims attributed to the sponsored feature, not independently verified figures.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWhat research examples did the feature highlight?
The feature describes projects that pair software research with access to specific hardware platforms. They illustrate the kinds of questions being explored; they do not establish commercial advantage or independently validated performance.
- Hybrid quantum machine learning: Mario Herrero Gonzáles’s work uses a classical computer for training and a quantum device to generate samples, with the aim of using an Infleqtion neutral-atom platform.
- Hard sampling problems: Leo Monbroussou’s work explores classically hard sampling using photonic platforms from ORCA Computing and Aegiq.
Caitlin Jones, a senior QSL researcher, said building the engineering knowledge and skills to work with quantum machines is important. The feature also emphasizes access to hardware experts as a practical benefit of collaboration between researchers and providers.
Why does verification and benchmarking matter?
Quantum computers use different physical approaches, and a result from one platform cannot be fairly compared with another merely by looking at a headline claim. Verification asks whether a computation or output is trustworthy; benchmarking provides a way to assess system performance for a defined task under stated conditions.
The 2026 programme included a QSL workshop on these topics, but the feature does not give comparable specifications, benchmark results or performance measurements for the platforms it mentions. It therefore supports no ranking of vendors or claim that one modality is superior. A meaningful technical comparison would need to specify the hardware modality, software and control interface, error characteristics and connectivity, benchmark method, and task being tested.
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Who supported the 2026 programme?
Physics World reports that around 170 people attended QSL’s third annual showcase. The feature lists support for the Quantum Fringe from the NQCC, Infleqtion, Quantinuum, Riverlane, Classiq, IBM, the Institute of Physics, the National Physical Laboratory and Nu Quantum. It also lists input from Edinburgh Innovations, the Centre of Doctoral Training in Quantum Informatics, QCi3 and IQN, the Quantum Software Alliance, and the Quantum Computing Application Cluster.
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The attendance and participation details above are reported by the NQCC-sponsored feature; they are not independent attendance measurements.
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