IBM’s Zurich Research Laboratory is the European branch of the IBM Research Division with headquarters at the T.J. Watson Research Centre in Yorktown Heights, NY, USA. IBMZ traditionally has a long experience and strong links to academia in Europe and is currently participating in more than 50 Horizon2020 projects with more than 500 partners from the academic and the industrial sector.
Throughout the history of the Zürich Laboratory, scientists have made major contributions to the advancement of solid-state physics, stimulated by problems relevant to technology. Most notably, the invention of scanning tunneling and atomic force microscopes and the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity were awarded Nobel prices and the Kavli award. IBM also hosts seven ERC Grant projects. A current main research focus is quantum technologies, in particular quantum computing and simulation with superconducting circuits towards scientific and commercial applications.
Within FATMOLS, the IBM team, led by Ivano Tavernelli, will contribute to the design and the implementation of quantum algorithms for the solution of electronic structure problems in quantum chemistry and molecular physics. The algorithms will be optimized to take advantage of the characteristic of the hardware used to perform the calculations. The algorithms will be developed as part of the IBM open-source package (Qiskit) that already provides many of the functionalities (modules) needed to guarantee the efficient development of this project, namely: Phase Estimation algorithms, Variational Quantum Eigensolver, Time-Evolution Algorithms (Trotter factorization), and different tools to map spin, boson and electron (Fermionic) Hamiltonians and corresponding wavefunction Ansätze. The partner will also contribute to the simulation of molecular systems under investigation using conventional first-principle simulations and to the modelling of the coupling with the environment using open-quantum systems approaches.