Chinese scientists’ quantum computing pipeline could change the way drugs are designed

Researchers say quantum computing could ‘revolutionise’ pharmaceuticals after they developed a new pipeline for drug discovery

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Chinese researchers have been working to use quantum computing to improve methods of drug design for the pharmaceutical industry. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 1:00pm, 28 Jul 2024Updated: 6:25pm, 28 Jul 2024

Chinese researchers have developed a quantum computing pipeline for drug discovery that could take the technology from concept to real-world drug design.

Using a mixture of simulations and calculations, the pipeline can be adapted to address different challenges in drug design, such as the interaction and bonding of drugs with a target, and the energy needed to break bonds within a drug.

Details of the pipeline were presented by researchers from the Tencent Quantum Lab, China Pharmaceutical University and research company AceMapAI Biotechnology in a paper published in peer-reviewed Nature Portfolio journal Scientific Reports last week.

Quantum computing can be useful in the design of drugs as it can simulate interactions between molecules and predict the success and safety of a drug.

“Quantum computing, with its superior computational capabilities compared to classical approaches, holds the potential to revolutionise numerous scientific domains, including pharmaceuticals,” the team wrote.

Existing classical methods in computational chemistry are not exact – and their cost goes up as the scale of computing grows, the researchers said.