I did not yet see a single quantum algorithm able to tackle the protein folding problem.
Sure, quantum computers could be faster at solving graph related problems, but I did not see an approach able to reduce protein folding to a graph problem.
On the other hand neural networks have been successfully applied to the protein folding problem, and they do that quite quickly.
Not a perfect solution indeed, quantum computers may be much better at that; but I still do not see a theoretical framework which justifies claims as to the applicability of quantum computers to the protein folding problem.
Ehhhhhh that’s purely a problem of the “setting up” a quantum computer (ok ok and how many qubits are involved). They SHOULD be extremely capable of it. Literally able to get a ‘correct’ answer in one cycle.
It’s just very unfortunate that quantum computers benefit greatly from slower cycles, and the setup of the computations are a real nightmare. As you say, I’m unaware of any that can solve protein folding in a single cycle, and the more cycles there are involved, the more subject it is to the algorithm implemented and setup steps taken.
Maybe one day, we’ll have billion-qubit quantum computers solving all sorts of problems reliably, but that day is definitely not today!
I still do not see a theoretical framework which justifies claims as to the applicability of quantum computers to the protein folding problem.
The quantum phase estimation (QPE) algorithm which calculates ground states of molecules is theoretically predicted to have exponential speedup over classical methods on unstructured problems. Protein folding is a ground state problem.
Not saying it will be best in practice, but that’s at least a theoretical framework.
I did not yet see a single quantum algorithm able to tackle the protein folding problem.
Sure, quantum computers could be faster at solving graph related problems, but I did not see an approach able to reduce protein folding to a graph problem.
On the other hand neural networks have been successfully applied to the protein folding problem, and they do that quite quickly.
Not a perfect solution indeed, quantum computers may be much better at that; but I still do not see a theoretical framework which justifies claims as to the applicability of quantum computers to the protein folding problem.
Ehhhhhh that’s purely a problem of the “setting up” a quantum computer (ok ok and how many qubits are involved). They SHOULD be extremely capable of it. Literally able to get a ‘correct’ answer in one cycle.
It’s just very unfortunate that quantum computers benefit greatly from slower cycles, and the setup of the computations are a real nightmare. As you say, I’m unaware of any that can solve protein folding in a single cycle, and the more cycles there are involved, the more subject it is to the algorithm implemented and setup steps taken.
Maybe one day, we’ll have billion-qubit quantum computers solving all sorts of problems reliably, but that day is definitely not today!
The quantum phase estimation (QPE) algorithm which calculates ground states of molecules is theoretically predicted to have exponential speedup over classical methods on unstructured problems. Protein folding is a ground state problem.
Not saying it will be best in practice, but that’s at least a theoretical framework.