IBM, Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN Simulate 12,635-Atom Protein via Quantum
Cleveland – September 12, 2026 -- A research team from Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN and IBM has been named a finalist for the 2026 ACM Gordon Bell Prize after simulating a 12,635-atom protein complex, the largest biologically meaningful molecule ever modeled using quantum computers. The winner will be announced at SC26 in Chicago, running Nov. 15-20, 2026.
Quantum-classical hybrid method scales computation 40-fold in under a year
The team's approach, called quantum-centric supercomputing, combines IBM Quantum Heron processors with classical supercomputers Fugaku and Miyabi-G, operated respectively by RIKEN and a University of Tokyo-University of Tsukuba consortium. The quantum systems executed up to 94 qubits and nearly 6,000 quantum operations on portions of the calculation critical to accuracy, while the classical machines reassembled full molecular representations.