Collaboration delivered a successful solution for the most complex known protein folding problem ever executed on a quantum computer

Kipu Quantum, a leader in application and hardware-specific quantum computing solutions, and IonQ (NYSE:IONQ), a leading commercial quantum computing and networking company, proudly announced a record achievement: the successful solution of the most complex known protein folding problem ever executed on a quantum computer.

This joint effort is the largest known quantum computation of its kind to-date, and demonstrates the synergy between Kipu's innovative algorithmic framework and IonQ's state-of-the-art hardware.

In their latest study, the teams solved:

• The largest known protein folding problem solved and executed on quantum hardware, comprising a 3D use case of up to 12 amino acids — an industry record on its own and a promising path towards commercial use of quantum computing for drug discovery.
• All-to-all connected spin-glass problems (QUBO) and MAX-4-SAT problems (HUBO) using up to 36 qubits, obtaining optimal solutions in all instances — an industry record for dense digital quantum computing problems executed on quantum hardware.

All instances were executed on IonQ's Forte generation systems using Kipu Quantum's flagship BF-DCQO (Bias-Field Digitized Counterdiabatic Quantum Optimization) algorithm. The results advance the frontier of near-term quantum computing and have the potential to make a large impact on biology and drug development.

BF-DCQO provides a non-variational, iterative method that is both accurate and resource-efficient. This algorithm can achieve better solutions with fewer quantum operations in each subsequent iteration. This is especially critical for protein folding, where several long-range interactions are present, making the all-to-all connectivity of IonQ's trapped ion systems an important asset.