Cleveland Clinic, a US-based medical center, and IBM, a leader in quantum computing technology, have begun the installation of the first private sector onsite, IBM-managed quantum computer in the United States. The IBM Quantum System will be housed on the main campus of the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland.
The first quantum computer in healthcare, expected to be finished in early 2023, is a significant component of the two organization’s ten-year collaboration aimed at radically increasing the pace of biological research through high-performance computing.
“The current pace of scientific discovery is unacceptably slow, while our research needs are growing exponentially,” “We cannot afford to continue to spend a decade or more going from a research idea in a lab to therapies on the market. Quantum offers a future to transform this pace, particularly in drug discovery and machine learning.”
Lara Jehi, M.D., Cleveland Clinic’s Chief Research Information Officer.
The Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator, which was announced in 2021, is a cooperative center that combines Cleveland Clinic’s medical expertise with IBM’s technical skills, particularly its leadership in quantum computing. It draws upon a variety of IBM’s latest advancements in high-performance computing, including:
Generative Toolkit for Scientific Discovery and other generative modelling capabilities that leverage AI to infer knowledge gaps and generate hypotheses, and ultimately aim to speed up the research process in therapeutics and biomarkers discovery;
“A step change in the way we solve scientific problems is on the horizon,” “At IBM, we’re more motivated than ever to create with Cleveland Clinic and others lasting communities of discovery and harness the power of quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud to usher in a new era of accelerated discovery in healthcare and life sciences.”
Ruoyi Zhou, Director, Ph.D., IBM Research – Cleveland Clinic Partnership.
- RXN, a cloud-based platform that combines AI models and the ability to directly control robotic labs to enable end-to-end design and synthesis of new chemical compounds;
- Deep Search, a next-generation AI tool for generating insight from large amounts of structured and unstructured technical literature; and
- High-Performance Hybrid Cloud Computing technologies enable researchers to “burst” their workloads into the cloud and access the resources they need at scale.
The Cleveland Clinic’s Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health, which is part of the Cleveland Innovation District, is also supported by the Discovery Accelerator. The centre, funded by the state of Ohio, Jobs Ohio, and the Cleveland Clinic, brings together a team dedicated to investigating, preparing for, and guarding against new pathogens and virus-related disorders.
Researchers use modern computational technology through Discovery Accelerator to accelerate essential research on medicines and vaccines. The Discovery Accelerator projects include a research study developing a quantum computing method to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins, improving a prediction model for cardiovascular risk following non-cardiac surgery, among others.
The teams have already initiated several collaborative projects that will benefit from the increased computational capabilities. A key component of the collaboration is educating tomorrow’s workforce and creating jobs to help the economy flourish.
