Can quantum computers bring an end to corrosion?

Now, with a new paper2 in Nature’s npj Quantum Information, researchers from Boeing and IBM Quantum have teamed up to develop new quantum computing methods for studying these chemical reactions, potentially an early step toward creating new, corrosive-resistant materials. Nguyen: This paper is about solving some important aerospace problems with quantum computers, specifically corrosion. Nguyen: Despite significant improvements in qubit coherence time, as well as faster and better quantum gates and measurement operations, we are still in the transitional phase toward fault-tolerant quantum computers. Working with the IBM team, we found a method to significantly reduce the quantum resources needed to address our problem on IBM Quantum hardware. Boeing and IBM Quantum to continue materials researchThe researchers say Boeing and IBM Quantum plan to continue their collaboration with further explorations of how quantum computing may shed light on chemical reactions involved in the degradation of materials by their interaction with different kinds of environments.