On July 14, 2026, the Quantum Computing Working Group of the Cluster Mobility & Logistics met online for the third time this year—following its kickoff in January and a visit to the Leibniz Supercomputing Center in May.
Christopher Sowinski, Technology Field Coordinator for Quantum Technologies at the FAPS Chair at FAU Erlangen-Nuremberg, presented how FAU is consolidating its quantum research across physics, electrical engineering, computer science, chemistry, and mechanical engineering within the “Light.Matter.QuantumTechnologies” Center of Excellence. At the FAPS Chair itself, the focus is on the application of quantum computers in optimization—as part of the TAQO-PAM project, which investigates the planning and control of industrial manufacturing using hybrid quantum-classical algorithms (in collaboration with OTH Regensburg, Siemens, BMW, OptWare, and Eviden). Use cases under consideration include job-shop scheduling and setup group optimization in electronics production. Currently under development are quantum machine learning, simulation, quantum sensing, and the question of how quantum optimization can be made accessible via large language models even without domain expertise. For external partners, the chair offers technology presentations, an initial assessment of specific application problems, and research collaborations.
Dr. Alexander Diedrich, head of the Symbolic Methods research group at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, then provided insight into automatic fault diagnosis in production facilities. The approach describes a system using a logical model, compares the expected behavior with the observed behavior, and infers the cause of the fault from the deviation. Diedrich demonstrated how such a diagnostic problem can be transformed into a mathematical optimization problem and solved using quantum algorithms—initially on a quantum annealer, and in more recent work using gate-based approaches. In doing so, he outlined which problem classes from industrial production can already be mapped to quantum hardware today and where research currently stands.
This was followed by an open discussion centered on the question of where participants see realistic points of contact with quantum computing within their organizations. Finally, feedback on the working group was gathered, and the next steps were agreed upon.