As part of the announcements last week at the IBM Quantum Summit 2022, Algorithmiq, a Helsinki-based quantum computing startup, has joined IBM Quantum Network. Algorithmiq’s goal is to bring efficiencies to drug discovery and development process using quantum computing.
(Fascinating Q&A with Dr. Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO and co-founder of Algorithmiq – Read here)
In its partnership with IBM, Algorithmiq is looking to combine its quantum algorithm strength with “IBM’s best-in-class hardware and quantum chemistry expertise toward realizing the full potential of the technology for quantum chemistry simulations,” says Sabrina Maniscalco, CEO and co-founder of Algorithmiq. Chemistry simulations are fundamental to drug-discovery and the promise of quantum advantage in this process is something Guillermo Garcia Perez, CSO and co-founder of Algorithmiq reflects on – “Whilst unleashing the full power of quantum simulations will likely require fault-tolerant quantum computers, near-term devices like those developed by IBM, combined with Algorithmiq’s novel algorithms based on informationally complete data, are today already showing progress toward the demonstration of a quantum advantage for chemistry. This is a steppingstone for any application of quantum computers to Life Sciences.”
Algorithmiq Launches Aurora
In a separate and independent announcement this week, Algorithmiq launched Aurora – its drug-discovery platform. Here are some highlights from the announcement –
- Aurora is a single platform for chemical simulations that uses both classical and quantum algorithms to solve drug-discovery problems such as protein-ligand binding on a quantum computer.
- “It operates a three-step process: pre-processing, processing, and post-processing. It works by optimizing the input for the quantum computer – reducing the complexity of the problem by modelling only the most relevant part of the molecules – then performs the calculation on the hardware, before ’cleaning up’ any errors. Algorithmiq’s patented and scalable method of extracting useful information from quantum computers scales as the number of qubits increases, keeping it at the cutting edge of state-of-the-art hardware.”
- Algorithmiq will be able to demonstrate useful quantum advantage by 2023.
- Aurora is a hardware-agnostic platform. Dr Matteo Rossi, Co-founder and CTO of Algorithmiq adds that the Aurora platform – ‘runs on a multitude of apparatuses, ranging from photonics devices to superconductors to trapped ions. As a result, Aurora can be tailored to fit the industry standard and most up-to-date hardware.’
More Details on Algorithmiq
- For a small start-up, Algorithmiq packs a lot of excitement. It is setting out to bring a level of efficiency to a conventional process – leveraging quantum computing to bringing scale advantages in drug discovery and creating a breakout space around Quantum Biotech.
- They have a world class, multi-disciplinary team of experts in the field and together have amassed over 300+ peer reviewed publications.
- Noise and error-mitigation are challenges in quantum computing. In this context, some of the advances Algorithmiq brings to the table – “It has patented a method to combine the results of a quantum computation with the most powerful classical algorithms in a way that is efficient, accurate, and scalable. Their novel measurement techniques have shown to greatly reduce runtime in hybrid quantum-classical algorithms. In addition, Algorithmiq’s post-processing strategies for error mitigation have shown to significantly improve the accuracy of quantum chemistry simulations.” Here is an interesting paper from the team.
- They are based in Finland and raised a $4M seed round in February 2022 backed by investment from CEO & Founders of Tiger Global, K5 Global and numerous angel investors. Alongside Co- Founder and CEO Professor Sabrina Maniscalco, Algorithmiq’s Board consists of Jorma Ollila, former CEO and Chairman of Nokia, Haakon Overli, founding General Partner at Dawn Capital, and Co-Founder Dr Jussi Westergren, early investor in Deepmind.