Chalmers and Lund University test quantum protein folding

Researchers from Chalmers University of Technology and Lund University are testing the limits of current quantum hardware by applying variational quantum algorithms to protein design. Their work focuses on optimizing sequences to minimize energy in a target structure, the first of these two steps, rather than attempting full protein folding computations on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. The team compared problem-informed quantum circuits with the hardware-efficient ansatz, achieving a significant success probability (≥0.2) in most instances when running the latter on quantum hardware at Jülich Supercomputing Centre with parameters from simulations. This approach acknowledges the constraints of existing technology while exploring practical applications for quantum computing in biomolecular…