POSCO Holdings and QC Ware Revolutionize Battery Simulation with Quantum Computing

SEOUL, Republic of Korea and PALO ALTO, Calif., Dec. 7, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- POSCO Holdings, and QC Ware Corp., today announced that they are jointly developing revolutionary new techniques for the simulation of battery materials on quantum computers.

Proliferation of electric vehicles, growing energy requirements, and the imperative for sustainability are continuing to drive demand for batteries that last longer and require less time to charge. Design of new battery materials involves experimental production and testing, which are both costly and time-consuming. Material simulations could significantly accelerate the design process by predicting the most promising candidates before any experiment is conducted. However, current methods on classical computers suffer from either limited accuracy or excessive computational cost.

POSCO Holdings and QC Ware have joined forces on a grant from the Korean government to quantify the utility and advantage of quantum computers for the accurate and efficient simulation of candidate battery materials. The collaboration will concentrate on the simulation of realistic solid state electrolytes for Lithium batteries and benchmark new quantum computing methods vs the best approaches currently in use today.

This research is supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) of the Ministry of Science and ICT (RS-2023-00257288). Earlier in the year, POSCO Holdings applied for the 'Quantum Advantage Challenge Research based on Quantum Computing' grant under the project titled 'Development of Simulation Technology for Eco-Friendly Material Based on Quantum Computing'.

The collaboration is spearheaded by the AI R&D Laboratories of POSCO Holdings New Experience of Technology Hub with the directive to apply new approaches of simulating battery materials to quantum computers.

"With the world moving toward diverse and flexible energy solutions, it is essential to develop more performant batteries to be integrated in future, sustainable energy grids." said Robert Parrish, SVP of Quantum Chemistry at QC Ware Corp. "Computational simulations are playing a growing role in the design of new materials, and this collaboration with POSCO Holdings is essential to QC Ware's mission: developing quantum algorithms that accelerate the timeline to quantum computers impacting real-world use cases."

POSCO Holdings

POSCO Group, which was launched in 1968 as a steel company, switched to a holding company system centered on POSCO Holdings in March last year. Since then, steel, rechargeable battery materials, lithium and nickel, hydrogen, energy, construction/infrastructure, and food (Agri-Bio) have been selected as seven key projects to discover the group's future growth engines and foster its business portfolio. Based on this, POSCO Group will grow into a leading supplier of eco-friendly future materials that ushers in a sustainable future.   

QC Ware

QC Ware is a quantum and classical computing software and services company focused on delivering enterprise value through cutting edge computational technology. With specialization in machine learning and chemistry simulation applications, QC Ware develops for both near-term quantum and state-of-the-art classical computing hardware. QC Ware's team is composed of some of the industry's foremost experts in quantum and classical computing. QC Ware is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and supports its European customers through its subsidiary in Paris and customers in Asia through its business development office in Tokyo, Japan. QC Ware also organizes Q2B, a global series of conferences for industry, practitioner, and academic quantum computing communities.

SOURCE QC Ware Corp.