IonQ, AstraZeneca, AWS, NVIDIA Achieve 20x Faster Drug Discovery

IonQ Inc. (IONQ.US) has announced a significant breakthrough in its collaboration with AstraZeneca (AZN.US), Amazon Web Services (AWS), and NVIDIA (NVDA.US). The joint research project has successfully developed and demonstrated a quantum-accelerated computational chemistry workflow. This innovative workflow showcases a hybrid quantum-classical computing model, offering solutions to complex challenges in drug development and potentially enhancing the speed and efficiency of the drug discovery process.

The collaboration focused on a critical step in the Suzuki-Miyaura reaction, a chemical transformation reaction used in the synthesis of small molecule drugs. By integrating IonQ's Forte quantum processing unit (QPU) with NVIDIA's CUDA-Q platform, powered by NVIDIA H200 GPUs on Amazon Braket, and AWS ParallelCluster services, the research team achieved an end-to-end solution that improved the computation time by over 20 times compared to previous benchmarks. This technological advancement not only maintains computational accuracy but also reduces the overall expected runtime from "months" to "days."

Eric Kessler, General Manager of Amazon Braket, highlighted the significance of combining quantum computing resources on Amazon Braket with AWS's scalable GPU resources. He noted that this integration is helping AstraZeneca explore the potential applications of future quantum computers in accelerating computational chemistry research.

IonQ emphasized that this achievement demonstrates the capability of hybrid quantum computing to overcome computational limitations in high-precision molecular modeling, thereby supporting the analysis of more complex chemical systems. The successful demonstration of this quantum-accelerated workflow underscores the potential of quantum computing in revolutionizing the pharmaceutical industry by expediting the drug discovery process and enhancing the development of new therapeutics.