As part of the SuperComputing 2023 conference in Denver (SC23), the Grand Equipement National de Calcul Intensif (GENCI), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA), Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ) and PASQAL are demonstrating the progress made in the European High-Performance Computer and Quantum Simulator hybrid (HPCQS) project. Indeed, HPC-Quantum Computing applications in the fields of finance, pharmaceuticals and energy are taking advantage of the forthcoming quantum computers currently installed in the CEA/TGCC (France) and FZJ/JSC (Germany) supercomputing centers, delivering results that are already concrete.
Today, PASQAL is delivering two quantum computers with more than 100 qubits to its first customers in France (GENCI/CEA) and Germany (FZJ). These devices, acquired as part of the European HPCQS project, and co-financed by the EuroHPC Joint Undertaking, France and Germany, will be coupled to the Joliot-Curie and JURECA DC supercomputers respectively.
Over the past few months, several HPC-Quantum Computing and Simulation (HPC-QCS) applications have been investigated on the targeted 100+ qubit quantum computing platform based on neutral atoms. These explorations involved several industrial partners from various fields who provided practical use cases which, with the support of the PASQAL team, were ported to the quantum system, enabling more effective drug development, more efficient electricity consumption and a competitive edge in risk management.
An important illustration of this is the development of a new quantum algorithm to accelerate drug discovery. A joint collaboration between PASQAL and start-up Qubit Pharmaceuticals was launched at the end of 2021, co-funded by the Ile-de-France region's Quantum Pack (PAQ) initiative for an 18-month project. This collaboration aims to improve understanding of protein hydration, a crucial element in determining how the drug candidate can inhibit the toxic behavior of the targeted protein. A preliminary version of the algorithm for identifying the presence of water molecules in protein pockets has been implemented on PASQAL's analog quantum computer to validate theoretical predictions with impressive correspondence. The follow-up to this project is co-funded by the Wellcome Trust Quantum for Bio program.
PASQAL will present this exploration for commercial and strategic advantage on the CEA and FZJ/JSC stands at the SuperComputing 2023 conference in Denver via live demonstrations.
The two PASQAL quantum computers will be available to a wide range of European users in 2024. They are the first building blocks of a federated European HPC-QCS infrastructure that will also comprise the six quantum computers acquired by EuroHPC JU and hosted in France (GENCI/CEA), Germany (LRZ), the Czech Republic (IT4I @ VSB), Poland (PSNC), Spain (BSC-CNS) and Italy (CINECA).
HPCQS users are already able to validate their use cases through various entry points, such as the Pulser environment deployed on the Joliot-Curie and JURECA DC environments, as well as through remote access to a 100+ qubit device hosted at PASQAL's premises in Massy, France. Currently, some of JSC's HPCQS users are carrying out remote simulations on this device to compare and demonstrate quantum many-body scarring, a phenomenon that has recently generated much interest in the foundations of quantum statistical physics and potential quantum information processing applications. European end-users will soon have access to a more scalable tensor lattice-based emulator of PASQAL, called EMU-TN, which will also be deployed in French and German environments.
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