Challenge benchmarks quantum and hybrid approaches to energy storage and microgrid planning
Office of Technology Commercialization
September 24, 2026
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WASHINGTON, D.C.—The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) today announced the winning teams in DOE’s Energy and Critical Infrastructure challenge topic, part of the 2026 Global Industry Challenge hosted by Connected DMV. The teams explored how quantum and hybrid computing could help determine where to deploy energy storage and microgrids, and at what capacity.
Those decisions are becoming more complex as electricity demand grows from data centers, advanced manufacturing, and other large industrial loads. The challenge asked teams to test emerging computing approaches against this grid planning problem and compare their results with classical computing methods.
The winning teams in DOE’s challenge topic are:
- The winning team was: Qtyche
- The runner-up team was: BosonQ Psi (BQP)
“Maintaining U.S. leadership in emerging technologies requires rigorous testing against real-world problems and a clear understanding of both their capabilities and their limitations,” said Anthony Pugliese, Chief Commercialization Officer and Director of the DOE Office of Technology Commercialization. “Through our collaboration with Connected DMV, this challenge gave innovators an opportunity to test quantum and hybrid computing approaches against a complex energy infrastructure problem and establish benchmarks that can help us measure progress as the technology matures. Building this evidence base is an important part of understanding where emerging technologies may ultimately have practical applications.”
“As a nonprofit dedicated to driving transformative innovation, Connected DMV is proud to host the Global Industry Challenge, which this year engaged over 600 applicants from more than 50 countries competing across four industry use cases over three phases and six months,” said Tom Touchet, Interim CEO of Connected DMV. “Our partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy is critical to this effort. By combining DOE’s deep domain expertise with our collaborative platform, we are connecting quantum researchers directly with essential infrastructure problems to advance real-world solutions that will strengthen national grid resilience.”
“We designed DOE’s challenge topic to test quantum and hybrid approaches against a real grid planning problem, not to assume they outperform today’s tools, but to establish a rigorous way to measure progress as quantum hardware and algorithms advance” said Rima Kasia Oueid, Senior Commercialization Executive and Quantum & Space Lead at DOE’s Office of Technology Commercialization. “By defining a real grid planning problem and requiring teams to benchmark quantum and hybrid approaches against classical methods, we can better understand current capabilities and limitations, identify the technical milestones that still need to be reached, and track whether these approaches become increasingly relevant as the field progresses toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.”
In the final phase, teams executed their approaches using quantum hardware and simulation environments and compared their results with classical baselines. The resulting performance benchmarks provide reference points for assessing current capabilities and tracking progress as quantum hardware and algorithms improve.
The 2026 Global Industry Challenge is hosted by Connected DMV. DOE OTC led development of the energy infrastructure challenge topic and led the technical review of submissions. The results provide benchmarks for tracking progress as quantum computing technology advances.
For more information about the challenge, visit pqic.org/challenge.