The Value of Being a Quantum- Optimization Agnostic: Part Two

This is the second article in a two-part series.  The Value of Being a Quantum Optimization Agnostic: Part One (https://www.insidequantumtechnology.com/news-archive/the-value-of-being-a-quantum-optimization-agnostic-part-one/) was published December 15, 2022.

Molecular Optimization- the Use Case that Led to a Spin-Off: Good Chemistry

A significant part of 1QBit’s early optimization algorithms followed the quantum annealing, Ising model, and paradigm. Therefore, the Molecular Hamiltonian, which Arman Zaribafiyan presented in June 2020 that was optimized using the hybrid-VQE algorithm with a gate-based quantum computer (IBM), was a surprise to me. Arman Zaribafiyan is formerly first employee of 1QBit, now Founder and CEO of the Good Chemistry Company, spun-off in 2021-2. Zaribafiyan introduced in his talk, the VQE Hamiltonian mapping to IBM hardware using Kandala et al, 2017’s Hardware-efficient variational quantum eigensolver for small molecules and quantum magnets.

The following Fig. 6 illustrates a deeply connected VQE molecular optimization research community with Kandala’s paper as a central node. Kandala et al, 2017’s paper this Fall has >1500 citations, with nearby connected research nodes, in the many hundreds of citations, in a nested cluster of progressively fewer citations. If one is considering a spin-off company, this is the kind of deeply connected research community who can support you. This community existed when Arman Zaribafiyan formed an incubated computational chemistry simulation division of 1QBit in 2018 and continued to grow through 2022.

Figure 6. A Connected Papers graph of the deeply connected VQE molecular optimization research community with Kandala’s paper as a central node.

In Zaribafiyan’s June 2020 talk he described a Use Case: Simulating molecular energies for pharmaceutical drug development. Zaribafiyan described how bringing pharmaceutical drugs to the market is a very long and costly process. On average it costs a pharmaceutical company $1 billion to $4 billion, and 10-15 years. By comparison, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 cost about $400 million and took 5 years. That leads to notions like Orphan drugs, where fewer than 10% of drugs actually make it to market to help people. By simulating the molecular energies, before the expensive laboratory work, drug development costs and time are reduced. His 2020 talk showed a study of hydrocarbons, where the number of qubits needed to accurately simulate their total energies was reduced 60-85%. His talk convinced me of the business case that Good Chemistry must have had when it spun off earlier this year.

On April 5, 2022, the Good Chemistry company emerged in the quantum community, spun-off from 1QBit, with a goal to change the way that new materials are discovered and designed. The QEMIST software platform for chemical property prediction, and its patent and about ½ of the QEMIST team are part of the Good Chemistry spin-off. The Tangelo (Fig. 5) quantum computing SDK was transferred from 1QBit to Good Chemistry, as well.  The number of spun-off staff from 1QBit looks to be approximately one-fourth of 1QBit’s 2020 staff.

1QBit forges ahead too

While Good Chemistry was spinning off, 1QBit succeeded in

• moving their quantum agnostic computing software platform to the Microsoft Azure Quantum Cloud – see pdf link inside,
• developing a new method called neural error mitigation to improve the numerical and experimental VQE to yield low-energy errors, low infidelities, and accurate estimations of complex observables, and
• winning the BMW Quantum Computing Challenge (December 2021) with their NTT Data and NTT Research partners. Out of 70 entries, they developed a Use Case that optimizes pre-production vehicle testing in a hybrid quantum computing environment. More details on TEAM One QuBit eNTiTy’w (26:38) Use Case is on twitch.

One former 1QBit employee told me to expect some 1QBit announcements in the 2023 New Year.

An Online Community that talked with the deep tech workers instead of at them

In May 2016, 1QBit jointly launched the Quantum for Quants (2021 Wayback link) with D-Wave and finance experts. A community was formed, to encourage discussion, collaboration, and provide tools and resources. What was notable, was its ‘organic’ growth, a supportive place to talk, and was quantum hardware agnostic. Fig. 7 is a Quantum for Quants screen from February 2019.

Figure 7. Quantum for Quants screen from February 2019.

Click here to see Quantum for Quants website on WayBack.

However, 2021 brought a change of heart to the two companies to continuing the support. The audience growth was considered very slow by the two companies. There was a needed update of the software platform and a lack of agreement for that particular update by D-Wave. The two decided to shut the service down on November 30, 2021.  Quantum Ecosystem builders everywhere might study this example with Wayback Machine over the six years to see that, the return-of-investment ‘ROI’ of such deep-tech communities, is many times, due to:

• the high-quality engagement (talking with, not at) individuals,
• the individuals, who can serve as advocates and beta testers to help companies provide better services and products,
• the informal introduction of the new tech, which reduces hype,
• its valuable network building,
• the companies + deep-tech communities which better support each other in times of change.

SUMMARY. 1QBit’s ten-year journey with its new Good Chemistry spin-off, has shown how to meet challenges and grow and adapt in the fast changing, cutting edge, quantum technology field. For a quantum software company:

• The quantum technology field is moving towards quantum hardware agnostic services.
• A dependence on more than one 
quantum vendor will support your business better in the long-term.
• Optimization algorithms provide a rich context from which to follow quantum business opportunities.
• Hybrid (classical-quantum) algorithm approaches can provide solutions to some intractable problems on a near-term quantum device (NISQ).
• Hamiltonians of the physics problem you wish to solve must be mapped to the Hamiltonian of the underlying quantum hardware.
• Quantum cloud vendors are moving towards abstracting out the quantum processor details.
• If a research community for a quantum tech topic is a deeply nested network, it likely has the technical skills for supporting a spin-off company.
• The return-of-investment of a well-developed quantum tech discussion platform is many times what you might think initially.

This is the second article in a two-part series.  The first article was published last week and can be read by clicking this link.

*****

Amara Graps, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary physicist, planetary scientist, science communicator and educator and expert on all quantum technologies.

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• Source: https://www.insidequantumtechnology.com/news-archive/the-value-of-being-a-quantum-optimization-agnostic-part-two/