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Busan Metropolitan City’s Role as a “Global Bridge” Shines… Pusan National University Research Team Wins Prestigious International Quantum Competition

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Busan Metropolitan City, led by Acting Mayor Kim Kyung-duk, announced that Team PNU of Pusan National University, whose advancement onto the global stage has been supported through the City’s international research cooperation network, won the Grand Prize (Top 1) in the Quantum Innovation Challenge, an international quantum competition held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on May 27.

The research team was selected as one of the world’s Top 5 teams in the competition and was invited to present at the European Quantum Technology Conference (EQTC 2025), Europe’s largest academic event in the quantum field. There, the team demonstrated its technological excellence by presenting its research achievements to quantum experts from around the world.

This achievement is regarded as a tangible result of Busan Metropolitan City’s sustained efforts to support local researchers’ international research activities and global advancement through cooperation with Innovation Centre Denmark.

Since 2024, the City has built a foundation for collaboration by supporting joint research initiatives between local universities and Denmark, particularly in the smart city sector, through Denmark’s Global Innovation Network Programme (GINP).

Building on this cooperative relationship, during the Quantum Korea event last year, the City held strategic partnership discussions with a quantum delegation from Denmark’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and expanded the scope of bilateral cooperation from smart cities to quantum technologies.

In this process, the City proactively identified information regarding the Quantum Innovation Challenge scheduled to be held in Denmark and shared related information with local researchers, thereby creating opportunities for them to compete on the global stage.

With the City’s support, the research team led by Professor Hwang Won-joo of the School of Computer Science and Engineering at Pusan National University demonstrated exceptional originality and technical excellence, ultimately earning the distinction of first place (Top 1).

The Quantum Innovation Challenge is an international competition organized by global pharmaceutical companies including Novo Nordisk to discover innovative ideas that apply quantum technology to solving challenges in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors.

Team PNU entered the competition with a “Quantum AI Hybrid Model” designed to predict the most appropriate drug dosage for patients during the early stages of clinical development. The team advanced to the finals and presented its research findings at the European Quantum Technology Conference (EQTC 2025).

Competing against leading universities and research teams from around the world, including UCLA in the United States and Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, Team PNU received high evaluations for both the completeness of its research and its practical applicability, ultimately securing the Grand Prize (Top 1).

As a result of this victory, the research team has gained opportunities for joint research with global pharmaceutical companies and European researchers, as well as exclusive access to world-class supercomputing infrastructure.

This achievement is widely regarded as a representative success story of a local-government-led global research support model, in which a local government established an international network through strong trust-based relationships with overseas governmental institutions and successfully translated those connections into tangible opportunities for local researchers to enter the global stage and achieve convergent research and development (R&D) outcomes.

Kim Kyung-duk, Acting Mayor of Busan Metropolitan City, stated, “I am extremely proud that our outstanding local researchers have achieved the meaningful accomplishment of ranking first in the world on the global bridge that Busan Metropolitan City and Innovation Centre Denmark have built together.”

He added, “This victory is a representative example demonstrating that Busan’s competitiveness in quantum artificial intelligence research is at a world-class level. We will continue to support international joint research and global advancement opportunities with leading overseas institutions so that talented local researchers can conduct world-class research and continue to grow.”