John Morton’s Post

The inaugural Quantum Football Tournament held last Friday was a great success - bringing together the UK's leading quantum computing companies together for a fun (and gruelling!) afternoon of football, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. Having been part of the UK's quantum computing ecosystem from its infancy, it was wonderful to see such a striking picture of its growth with over 100 players from seven companies on the pitch buoyed on by supporters. Companies that have been collaborating and competing for funding over several years, turned up to compete instead on the football pitch. Well done to Quantum Motion for winning the tournament and fielding another team which finished third (for me being half English & half Spanish, finishing 1st and 3rd was a recurring theme of the weekend...). Honourable mentions to finalists, Riverlane, whose teams finished second and seventh and semi-finalists ORCA Computing who came fourth. Thanks to Phasecraft for designing and implementing a quantum algorithm to determine the tournament match schedule and running it on Quantinuum's H2 quantum computer. Hats off to Nu Quantum for sporting the most stylish football kit and of course to Oxford Quantum Circuits (OQC) with whom we kicked off this annual football event four years ago. Thanks to Qblox for supporting the event from afar, generously donating to our charitable cause and providing much needed energy-boosting stroopwafels. Special thanks to Sam Harman for showing his commitment as an investor through his professional (and mostly impartial) refereeing. It was great to see two CEOs demonstrating their leadership skills: James Palles-Dimmock, from the front, scoring 11 goals in eight games (eclipsing Messi and Mbappé over the same number of games), and Richard Murray, from the back, with a robust and commanding goal keeping display. Perhaps in future we will see more of the CEOs on the pitch leading by example...? Above all, thanks to all teams and participants, especially those that travelled from afar, for contributing to such a special and enjoyable atmosphere. I hope this will be a recurring fixture and look forward to meeting on the pitch next year!