Converting chemicals from one form to another,
understanding that requires very high level,
very accurate calculation so you can make predictions
about how the chemical reactions will work.
We see catalysis as one of the killer apps
for quantum computing.
Chemistry.
It helps make up our world,
and yet there are still huge gaps
in our understanding of it.
Our most powerful classical computers are limited
in the chemical modeling they can perform
and in turn the solutions they can unlock.
What solutions could we develop, for example,
to address sustainability if we were able to model
more complex molecules and reactions efficiently?
And what if we are able to do that
on a scalable quantum computer?
I'm Krysta Svore,
General Manager of Quantum Systems
and Software at Microsoft.
Today, I'm traveling to Richland, Washington
to meet with Nathan Baker
at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory,
where we've been partnering to bring the power of quantum
to our understanding of chemistry.
Pacific Northwest National Lab,
or PNNL, as we call it,
is a Department of Energy National Lab.
These laboratories handle large,
complex problems of national interest.
First and foremost,
PNNL's interested in some of the deep problems
associated with chemistry.
We've been very focused on problems in catalysis.
So that is converting chemicals from one form to another.
The science of catalysis
is trying to understand how that works
and use that chemical knowledge to be able to design
better ways to carry out that conversion.
So with catalysis,
we really wanna improve that efficiency
and have less dependence on our natural resources.
That's right.
Quantum chemistry is the area of computational chemistry
that tries to understand
how molecules react with one another,
what their energies are,
and how atoms move around in a chemical reaction.
The problem is the level of accuracy
we would need to design a new catalyst
is something that even the largest computers today
are struggling to realize.
Like those behind us.
Like the ones behind us.
The excitement around quantum computing is that
rather than waiting for a computer that's a billion times
more powerful than the one behind us,
quantum computing could help us get to that accuracy sooner
and with finite resources,
working hand in hand with the classical computing techniques
that we already have and use every day.
Putting it simply,
nature speaks the language of quantum mechanics,
and we're now striving to build computers
that can do the same.
When our technology is built
on the same foundational principles as nature,
we'll be able to mimic its behavior
and harness that power to make an impact
on the world around us.
Here's an example:
over 100 years ago,
the process that allows us to industrially convert nitrogen
to ammonia was developed.
This process has been critical
to artificial fertilizer production,
and in turn has enabled us to produce enough food
for a global population of 7 billion.
But the process is incredibly resource-intensive,
consuming large amounts of our world's precious resources
like natural gas.
We want to improve this process
for the sake of our environment.
To explore this chemical behavior in depth,
I'm speaking with Bojana Ginovska,
a computational chemist here at PNNL,
about her work with nitrogenase,
an enzyme present in healthy soils.
So I have been a computational chemist
for quite a few years here at PNNL.
My work focuses mostly on studying biological systems,
that's enzymes, to study chemical reactions
that are relevant to energy applications.
One of the enzymes we're studying is nitrogenase.
Fertilizers, and specifically ammonia
that's used in fertilizers,
is a very energy-intensive reaction.
It actually uses about 1% of all the energy produced
in the world just to convert nitrogen to ammonia.
The bacterias that have this enzyme nitrogenase
are able to really interconvert this reaction
a lot more efficiently under very mild conditions.
Nitrogen is very abundant.
It's all around us.
So we'd love to be able to take that nitrogen
and turn it into ammonia
and have our agriculture really feed the world
in a way that doesn't really deplete our energy resources.
Nature does it best.
We've known that for quite some time.
And we are trying really hard to understand
all the mechanistic details so that we can build
whatever it is that we need to put it into technology.
That's a great phrase to build on, right?
With quantum computing,
I think we have the opportunity to now compute
closer to how nature computes.
Exactly.
We have made a lot of progress using classical computers,
but we are constantly hitting against the limitations.
Having the power of quantum computing would help us
move this field very, very far ahead.
We have deep expertise in computational chemistry.
What we don't have is the ability to understand
how to put that on to a future quantum computing platform.
And so it's been a great partnership.
We've been able to use the tools,
the languages that are coming out of Microsoft
to turn these quantum chemistry capabilities
into something that we hope will execute
on the next generation of computers.
Yeah, it's great to bring together
experts from both sides.
These quantum algorithms can actually have impact
and change solutions,
and that's pretty exciting.
It's through these cross-industry partnerships
that we're truly able to explore the full impact
quantum computing can have on our world.
Together with PNNL,
we're working to develop quantum algorithms to enable
better solutions to challenging problems in chemistry,
and these quantum algorithms will one day run
on a fully scaled quantum computer.
When we join together to share knowledge across disciplines,
we have an opportunity to revolutionize fields
and unlock amazing capabilities to help save our planet.
