Drug discovery
Energy systems
Agriculture
Transportation
New materials could make electric vehicles lighter and their batteries more powerful. And QCs’ advantage in optimising processes should help logistics firms and transport networks reduce journey times and improve fleet management.
Drug discovery
Drug companies should be able to simulate complex atomic-level interactions to develop new molecules and analyse their behaviours to create medicines more quickly, safely and at lower cost.
Energy systems
Enabling the discovery of new materials could lead to more efficient solar panels. And by modelling plasma’s behaviour, QCs could help engineers harness nuclear fusion, which powers the sun.
Agriculture
Making chemical fertilisers is energy- and carbon-intensive. QCs could unlock the catalyst that lets microorganisms turn nitrogen into ammonia, which is currently too complex to model.
Quantum computers
By helping researchers optimise hardware designs and enhance quantum error correction, QCs could supercharge their own evolution, spurring further breakthroughs.
Financial services and security
It’s been speculated that QCs could improve risk management and create more efficient trading algorithms. They are also likely to be heavily used in breaking and creating tougher encryption methods.
Financial services and security
Transportation
Quantum computers
This illustration was inspired by the ‘probability density plot of a hydrogen atom’s electron’, reflecting the point that quantum mechanics can’t predict the exact location of a particle in space, only the probability of finding it at different locations.