The summer school Fundamental Science with Quantum Computers and Simulators, co-organised by RITCE, was held at the Miramar Palace in Donostia / San Sebastián from 14 to 17 September 2026, within the Summer Courses of the University of the Basque Country (UIK). It was directed by Enrique Rico Ortega (UPV/EHU, Ikerbasque, BasQ and CERN), Juan José García-Ripoll (IFF-CSIC) and Daniel Barredo (CSIC, Oviedo), and taught over three and a half days by twelve researchers leading the field in quantum computing, quantum simulation and quantum algorithms.
The school covered how programmable quantum devices are used on fundamental physics problems, from the experimental and the theoretical side: superconducting circuits, trapped ions, Rydberg-atom arrays and ultracold atomic systems, with quantum simulation of strongly correlated systems, error mitigation and control, variational and hybrid algorithms, and non-equilibrium dynamics, entanglement and quantum phase transitions on near-term devices. It was aimed at graduate students and researchers early in their careers.
The lecturers were Antonio Acín (ICREA and ICFO), Antoine Browaeys (CNRS, Institut d’Optique), Hans Peter Büchler (University of Stuttgart), Francesca Ferlaino (University of Innsbruck), Winfried K. Hensinger (University of Sussex), Michael Meth (University of Innsbruck), Markus Müller (RWTH Aachen and Forschungszentrum Jülich), Pedram Roushan (Google Quantum AI), Alireza Seif (IBM Quantum), Luca Tagliacozzo (IFF-CSIC) and Andreas Wallraff (ETH Zurich).
The school was co-financed by the Rydberg Atom Quantum Computer Initiative, the project led by Daniel Barredo with the support of the Secretaría de Estado de Digitalización e Inteligencia Artificial, and by BasQ, the Basque quantum strategy. The UIK Foundation hosted it and ran the venue and the registration. The full programme and the lecturers’ biographies are on the school’s page at UIK.