- CQC gets VQE "off the ground" and provides an efficient route towards 
simulating excited molecules using quantum computers

Cambridge Quantum Computing ("CQC") today announced an important breakthrough 
in quantum chemistry that will enhance and accelerate the commercialisation of 
quantum computing in an essential area of human endeavour - the search for new 
materials in sectors such as energy and pharmaceuticals.

Accurately simulating how atoms and molecules behave when absorbing energy is 
essential in developing advanced materials, such as efficient solar panels. 
Quantum computers provide a route to highly accurate simulations of such 
processes that are beyond the reach of today's classical computers. Whilst 
quantum algorithms, such as the well-known Variational Quantum Eigensolver 
("VQE"), are particularly adept at running on current quantum devices, VQE has, 
until now, been limited to simulating electrons in their lowest energy state, 
which is not useful for example, for modelling sunlight hitting a solar panel 
to excite an electron and generate electricity. To simulate such so-called 
"excited" states, one had to run a VQE calculation for the lowest energy state 
followed by other algorithms designed for excited states, which consumes 
valuable computational resources.

CQC's Cambridge based team led by scientists David Munoz Ramo and Gabriel 
Greene-Diniz have released a scientific preprint paper which details a 
ground-breaking achievement that breaks a logjam in exactly the problems noted 
above. In a recent article "Calculation of excited states via symmetry 
constraints in the Variational Quantum Eigensolver," CQC has, for the first 
time, exhibited how it is possible to adapt the VQE algorithm to directly 
calculate excited states in particular molecules, bypassing the need to first 
calculate the lowest energy state. This improves the efficiency of excited 
state calculations for many molecules of industrial interest and is an 
important and critical first step in developing next generation materials. The 
breakthrough will be applied by CQC with immediate effect through their unique 
enterprise software platform for quantum chemistry calculations "EUMEN."

Read the complete scientific paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.05168.

About Cambridge Quantum Computing 

Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) is a world-leading quantum computing software 
company with over 60 scientists including 35 PhD's across offices in Cambridge 
(UK), San Francisco, London and Tokyo. CQC builds tools for the 
commercialisation of quantum technologies that will have a profound global 
impact. 

CQC combines expertise in quantum software, specifically a quantum development 
platform (t|ket⟩TM), enterprise applications in the area of quantum 
chemistry (EUMEN), quantum machine learning (QML), quantum natural language 
processing (QNLP) and quantum augmented cybersecurity (IronBridge). 

For more information about CQC, visit www.cambridgequantum.com.

SOURCE: Cambridge Quantum Computing Limited