Applications are now open for the first round of the Mercari Professional Internship, an internship whose goal can be summarized as: “using new technology to create value in the world.”
In this first round, participants will use quantum annealing hardware provided by D-Wave (D-Wave Systems Inc.) to model and solve optimization problems using internal Mercari data.
What is D-Wave?
D-Wave provides quantum computing systems, and, in particular, the quantum annealing system D-Wave 2000Q. The utilization of D-Wave systems in various fields is currently being researched, and these systems are expected to contribute to a number of areas including optimization problems, machine learning, pattern recognition, cybersecurity, image recognition, and financial analysis. D-Wave systems are being used for advanced research in organizations like NASA, and their utilization is expected to improve research results in any number of fields in the future. D-Wave also offers Web APIs for C/C++ and Python, which provide a programmer-friendly interface.
Supervised by Professor Masayuki Ohzeki from Tohoku University
Mercari has an extensive amount of data regarding user transactions, as well as a massive amount of images/text gathered from items sold on the platform. In addition to in-app transactions, Mercari also supports shipping, matching, etc., and many of the challenges faced in operating our service can be modeled as optimization problems. Participants in this internship will work to solve such modeled problems using D-Wave’s quantum annealing for a hands-on experience solving optimization problems at quantum speed.
This internship will be supervised by Professor Masayuki Ohzeki from Tohoku University–don’t miss out on this amazing opportunity to research quantum annealing with him!