  Proton-proton (pp) collisions have been traditionally used as a baseline
measurement in the search for a deconfined state of matter in heavy-ion
collisions at ultrarelativistic energies. The unprecedented collision energies
that are available at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European
Laboratory for Nuclear Research (CERN) have illuminated new challenges in
understanding the possible formation of droplets of this deconfined matter of
partonic degrees of freedom in hadronic collisions, especially in
high-multiplicity events. Enhancement of multi-strange particles compared to
pions, degree of collectivity, comparable freeze-out temperature with heavy-ion
collisions, observation of a long-range ridge-like structure for
high-multiplicity events are some of the experimental observations in this
direction. In this article, we discuss some of the experimental observables and
outline new theoretical directions to understand the possibilities of exploring
the formation of QGP-droplets in pp collisions at the LHC.
