Hot on the heels of being featured in a keynote by NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang yesterday, Fermioniq has today shared details of a project it conducted in collaboration with Moderna and IBM Quantum.
Fermioniq explains:
“We developed and tested quantum-centric optimization algorithms to predict mRNA secondary structures — a key challenge in computational biology with direct implications for mRNA-based drug design.
“The algorithms were implemented on IBM’s quantum processors, solving instances with up to 156 qubits. To explore scalability, we used Fermioniq’s Ava to simulate larger problem sizes, successfully simulating a 354-qubit instance, pushing beyond the current state of the art for VQE simulation. Our results highlight the increasing potential of hybrid quantum-classical approaches for solving complex biological optimization tasks relevant to the pharmaceutical industry.”
This collaboration is one of a number of real-world examples of quantum technology making an impact in the health and life sciences sector included in Infinity’s latest sector report. Read it here.
Fermioniq continues:
“This project pushed the limits of quantum emulation. Variational quantum algorithms require repeated quantum circuit evaluations, demanding extremely fast simulation times. We optimized Ava to meet this challenge: for a 560-qubit problem, Ava simulated the circuit, performed over 32,000 measurements, and computed the cost function — all in under a second on a single NVIDIA GH200 GPU.
“Our role in the collaboration highlights the value of quantum emulators like Ava for exploring the scalability of quantum algorithms beyond the limits of today’s hardware, enabling meaningful investigation into their potential for industrial applications.”