Johnson Matthey and Microsoft Azure Quantum chemists have teamed as much as drive new discoveries in sustainable vitality. So far, Johnson Matthey has seen a two-fold acceleration in quantum chemistry calculations and we’re simply getting began. Both corporations acknowledge that the discoveries wanted to create a zero-carbon future would require important breakthroughs in chemical and supplies science, and are enthusiastic concerning the distinction we are able to make on this planet collectively.
Many of the toughest issues dealing with society, like reversing local weather change and addressing meals insecurity, are chemistry and supplies science issues. Progress on this area will impression 96 % of merchandise and 100% of humanity. With steady will increase in classical computing capabilities, extra quantum chemistry issues might be solved at this time utilizing state-of-the-art cloud high-performance computing (HPC) companies. However, the toughest chemistry and supplies science issues would require a scaled quantum machine just like the one Microsoft is engineering proper now. Ultimately, the impactful functions of the long run shall be a hybrid of HPC, AI, and quantum. Our purpose is to empower scientists to speed up the subsequent 250 years of chemistry discovery into 25 years. To begin, we’re studying and accelerating innovation alongside the pioneers on this area who’re desirous to make an impression at this time and put together for quantum computing tomorrow—pioneers like Johnson Matthey.
Johnson Matthey is a worldwide chief in sustainable applied sciences, with over 200 years of dedication to innovation and technological breakthroughs in transport, vitality, and chemical processing. For instance, one in three vehicles on the highway use a Johnson Matthey catalyst within the exhaust system, serving to to scale back dangerous emissions. Johnson Matthey is collaborating with Azure Quantum’s chemists to develop new predictive modeling instruments with the supercomputing capabilities of Azure HPC and refined workflows to speed up chemical simulations, discover the potential of AI, and get quantum prepared. The workforce has been in a position to speed up sure quantum chemistry calculations and scale back the turnaround time for his or her scaled workloads from six months to per week. These capabilities are remodeling the tempo of Johnson Matthey’s computational chemistry and supplies science analysis and growth (R&D).
The seek for higher hydrogen gasoline cell catalysts
One key space of Johnson Matthey’s sustainable applied sciences R&D is discovering higher catalysts for hydrogen gasoline cells that energy vehicles and buses. Electrocatalysts are supplies that facilitate electrochemical reactions in gasoline cells, serving to to make use of hydrogen gasoline to supply electrical energy. The only catalyst for hydrogen gasoline cells at this time is platinum, which is uncommon and really costly. The firm has expanded its groundbreaking digital analysis in electrocatalysts to develop different alloy catalysts that use much less platinum, to drive down the price of gasoline cell know-how. This analysis requires important computational assets to simulate advanced atomic interactions inside supplies.
Accelerating quantum chemistry discoveries
Johnson Matthey turned to Azure Quantum’s chemists to assist them discover new predictive modeling instruments, native to Azure, that might speed up nanoparticle simulations for locating new catalysts. Using these instruments with the supercomputing capabilities of Azure HPC, the workforce has considerably elevated the throughput of the calculations wanted to grasp and design new electrocatalyst supplies.
“With Azure HPC, we’ve seen about a 50 percent speedup on some of our chemistry calculations that we run—which is critical for R&D because every second counts, not just for getting the results quickly, but also in terms of cost and throughput,”—Glenn Jones, Research Manager, Johnson Matthey Technology Center.
Azure gives supercomputing scale and acceleration
These breakthrough acceleration capabilities are made potential by way of state-of-the-art Azure HPC {hardware} that’s uniquely suited to chemistry and supplies science workloads. The scale of the Azure HPC cloud permits massively parallel calculations for chemical and supplies science discovery whereas InfiniBand-connected CPU/GPU architectures speed up tightly coupled molecular simulation workloads. Workflow instruments like AiiDA may also help customers harness the ability of the cloud whereas managing its complexity and the size of knowledge from massively parallel calculations. Additionally, Azure deployment instruments can be utilized to rapidly get up and handle computational chemistry and supplies science environments within the cloud.
Preparing for future scaled quantum techniques
Azure just isn’t solely offering supercomputing scale and simulation acceleration; it’s also enabling Johnson Matthey to arrange for a quantum future, with hybrid workflows and codes to deal with much more bold issues and innovate quicker when scaled quantum techniques change into accessible.
“Since we’re using Azure, we are quantum-ready and on the path to tap into the power of quantum computers once available in the cloud through Azure Quantum. This will revolutionize how we conduct chemistry simulations,”—Glenn Jones, Research Manager, Johnson Matthey Technology Center.
Learn extra about chemical and supplies science innovation
This collaboration with Johnson Matthey is a part of Microsoft’s devoted efforts to speed up scientific discovery by empowering chemists and different scientists with state-of-the-art cloud companies tailor-made particularly to resolve quantum issues. We welcome Johnson Matthey to our community of quantum thought leaders and invite different enterprises who need to discover the potential for Azure cloud companies and quantum computing to innovate and dramatically enhance their chemistry and supplies growth to hitch our subsequent Microsoft Quantum Innovator sequence occasion.
Microsoft Quantum Innovator Series
The path to quantum at scale.
If you have an interest in assembly with our chemists and quantum architects to learn the way our platform can speed up your R&D, please attain out to the Azure Quantum workforce at QuantumInnovation@microsoft.com.