🔬 Breaking news! Scientists from the Chinese mainland have pulled off a quantum computing trick that could change how we find new medicines.
At the heart of this breakthrough is a collaboration between Hefei-based startup Origin Quantum, the University of Science and Technology of China, and the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at the Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center. Together, they built the world's first drug-molecule prediction system using a quantum-embedded graph neural network.
Graph neural networks usually treat atoms as “dots” and chemical bonds as “lines”. Traditional quantum algorithms were great at handling those dots but stumbled when it came to the lines. The team's genius: a new architecture that embeds both quantum nodes (atoms) and quantum edges (bonds), so everything runs in sync on a quantum level. 🚀
Why it matters: drug development is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Predicting a molecule's behavior early can save months (or even years) of lab work. Tests on the Origin Wukong quantum computer showed this method stays solid even on noisy hardware, boosting accuracy and speeding up the drug discovery race. 🏁
The full study is now available in the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. Next stop: faster, smarter medicines for everyone! 🌟
Reference(s):
China makes breakthrough in quantum computing for drug discovery
cgtn.com
