“The first quantum computer to start paying its way with useful work in the real world looks likely to do so by helping chemists,” writes MIT Technology Review, “trying to do things like improve batteries or electronics.” An anonymous reader quotes their report:
So far, simulating molecules and reactions is the use case for early, small quantum computers sketched out in most detail by researchers developing the new kind of algorithms needed for such machines… “From the point of view of what is theoretically proven, chemistry is ahead,” says Scott Crowder, chief technology officer for the IBM division that today sells hardware including supercomputers and hopes to add cloud-hosted quantum computers to its product line-up in the next few years…
Researchers have long used simulations of molecules and chemical reactions to aid research into things like new materials, drugs, or industrial catalysts. The tactic can reduce time spent on physical experiments and scientific dead ends, and it accounts for a significant proportion of the workload of the world’s supercomputers. Yet the payoffs are limited because even the most powerful supercomputers cannot perfectly re-create all the complex quantum behaviors of atoms and electrons in even relatively small molecules, says Alan Aspuru-Guzik, a chemistry professor at Harvard. He’s looking forward to the day simulations on quantum computers can accelerate his research group’s efforts to find new light-emitting molecules for displays, for example, and batteries suitable for grid-scale energy storage.
Microsoft is already focusing on chemistry and materials science in its quantum algorithm effort, saying a hybrid system combining conventional computers with a small quantum computer “has great promise for studying molecules.” Meanwhile, the article argues that breaking encryption, “although a genuine threat, is one of the most distant applications of the technology, because the algorithms involved would require an extremely large quantum processor.”
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