OTI Lumionics and the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology have achieved quantum emulation of over 200 qubits using a single commercial AMD CPU chip with 32 processes and 800GB of RAM, reducing the hardware demands for quantum simulation, the company says. Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, the research benchmarks an optimized C++ version of the iQCC method, delivering a 90-fold performance increase and reducing complex 112-qubit calculations to approximately one hour.

“We are looking at a shift where accuracy is no longer limited by hardware size,” said Dr. Scott Genin, VP of Materials Discovery at OTI Lumionics, explaining that this work aims to accelerate materials discovery for OLED displays.

iQCC Method Achieves 200+ Qubit Emulation on Standard CPUs

The optimized C++ version of the Iterative Qubit Coupled Cluster (iQCC) method utilized approximately 800GB of RAM and 32 CPU processes to reach this scale, a substantial reduction in hardware demands. The iQCC method’s efficiency was further validated by a 90x performance increase over traditional CPU environments; complex 112-qubit ground-state calculations, previously time-consuming, were completed in approximately one hour. This speedup stems from a focus on algorithmic efficiency rather than solely pursuing hardware advancements.

The research team benchmarked the iQCC method against classical approaches across 14 OLED emitter materials, revealing its ability to tackle problems where conventional methods falter. Dr. Genin stated, “For the materials we tested, standard classical methods simply broke down and produced unusable results.” Our approach succeeded where those methods failed, proving we can tackle the most complex strongly correlated problems without the need for a supercomputing cluster to emulate these types of calculations with high fidelity. This breakthrough has implications extending beyond theoretical chemistry, promising to accelerate materials discovery for consumer electronics.

The ability to perform high-fidelity quantum emulation on readily accessible hardware democratizes access to these powerful algorithms, allowing researchers with standard server setups, or even high-end desktops, to participate in advanced materials design. “The present study establishes a foundational framework for accelerated materials design and simulation, offering a reliable and high-efficiency alternative to traditional trial and error discovery methods,” said Dr. Tommy Ohyun Kwon, Principal Researcher at the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology. By combining OTI Lumionics’ algorithms with SAIT’s materials expertise, the collaboration aims to rapidly screen and optimize materials for brighter, more efficient OLED displays, circumventing the limitations of traditional supercomputing-dependent workflows.