The sheer length and complexity of polymers – chains of molecules that make up both artificial materials such as plastics and the proteins that form the essential building blocks of life – make them formidable objects to study. Researchers in Italy have now tackled this problem in a new way, using quantum computers to make polymers slightly more approachable.

In a collaboration between the Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati in Trieste and Trento University in Trento, Cristian Micheletti, Philipp Hauke and Pietro Faccioli used a specialist quantum computer called a quantum annealer to predict configurations of polymer chains. In doing so, Micheletti says they first had to “recast the basic models of polymer physics so that they can be used in a quantum computing framework”, anticipating that quantum technology will be the driving force behind scientific computing in the future.

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