Simulating molecules, chemical reactions and material properties is extremely difficult but the precise modeling enables for example the design of new drugs and new materials. Today’s supercomputers can perform very simple simulations and quantum computers are not better yet.

Quantum simulators based on the laws of quantum physics already perform simulations beyond what is classically possible today. The acceleration of this process occurs at hardware and software level. Promising hardware platforms base on ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices, trapped ions, arrays of superconducting qubits or of quantum dots and photons. Software platforms, based on simulated quantum circuits, quantum and quantum-inspired algorithms as well as quantum machine learning methods provide a framework for extremely fast and high precision simulations on both classical and quantum computers.

No matter if near or long term, quantum simulation will open up the possibility of innovating several application domains.