BP has joined the IBM Quantum Network as an Industry Partner, gaining access to IBM’s quantum computers via the cloud, including what is claimed to the ‘largest universal quantum system available to industry today’, a 65-qubit machine. A 1,000-plus qubit system is targeted for the end of 2023. BP is to work with IBM to explore the use of quantum computing to solve business and engineering challenges and explore the potential applications for driving efficiencies and reducing carbon emissions.
Morag Watson, BP’s senior VP digital science and engineering said, ‘Our ambition is to become a net-zero company by 2050. Next-generation computing capabilities such as quantum computing will assist in solving the science and engineering challenges we will face, enabling us to reimagine energy and design new lower carbon products’. Potential applications include modelling the chemistry and build-up of various types of clay in hydrocarbon wells, managing the fluid dynamics of wind farms and optimizing autonomous robotic facility inspection. More from IBM.
Total has gone so far as to appoint Marko Rancic as its first ‘Head of Quantum Computing’. Rancic was previously a postdoc at the University of Basel Switzerland. A Total-sponsored quantum computing project to research the ‘generalized pooling problem*’ (GPP) recently received funding from the Paris Region. Project ‘AQMuSE’ is to address GPP’s application to logistics along with partner Franco-Californian quantum computing boutique QCWare.
The Paris Region funds are disbursed from GENCI, a public company that works to increase the use of HPC to ‘boost competitiveness’ in the French economy. Genci’s ambitious project include a downtown Paris location, ‘La Maison du Quantique’, ‘to create synergies, benefit from shared space and infrastructures and accelerate the emergence of a quantum industry’.
Last year Total signed with Cambridge Quantum Computing (CQC) to develop quantum algorithms for carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS).
* A generic way of describing logistics flow across networks of sources, storage and sinks.
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