Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, IBM Finalists for ACM Gordon Bell Prize
News related to:Cleveland Clinic · 3 min read
Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM have been named as finalists for the 2026 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Gordon Bell Prize for a groundbreaking achievement in quantum computing and life sciences research. The joint research team successfully modeled a 12,635-atom protein, the largest known to be simulated using quantum computers. This milestone underscores the potential of quantum-centric supercomputing in advancing drug discovery and other life sciences applications.
The breakthrough was achieved through a novel framework that integrates quantum and classical computing methods. The team used the IBM Quantum Heron processors and two of the world's most powerful supercomputers, Fugaku at RIKEN in Japan and Miyabi-G, operated by the University of Tokyo and University of Tsukuba. The quantum computers employed up to 94 qubits to run nearly 6,000 quantum operations, critical for the computation's accuracy.
The project originated from the team's investigation into improving computation in drug discovery. Two fundamental challenges were addressed: modeling the movement of atoms as biological processes unfold and accurately computing their energies. The second challenge, particularly computing the energies, is well-suited for quantum computers, which operate by the laws of quantum mechanics.
The team's initial publication in May 2026 detailed the calculation of the electronic structure of two large protein complexes using the IBM Quantum Heron processors. This work was executed alongside Fugaku and Miyabi-G, which were used to reassemble the results and provide a complete representation of the molecules. In less than a year, the team scaled their method roughly 40 times, achieving 210 times improvement in accuracy.
The most significant advancement came in September 2026 when the team further improved the accuracy of their computations of the binding energies of the molecular system. Binding energies reflect how tightly molecules are bound together and can predict how they might interact with other systems. This enhanced accuracy is crucial for understanding the interactions between proteins and potential drug molecules.
To validate their workflow, the team utilized RIKEN's newest system, JHPC-quantum GPU supercomputer "ROQUO." This system allowed them to eliminate complex manual operations and data transfers, pointing toward faster and more accessible research. By orchestrating CPUs, GPUs, and QPUs together, the team minimized the need for manual transfers and reduced errors, demonstrating an early proof of how classical and quantum computing can work in concert on complex scientific problems.
These advancements reflect continued progress in both the accuracy of computed binding energies and the time-to-solution enabled by the automated workflow. The quantum-classical techniques developed by the team continue to reduce the computational overhead required to directly represent the chemistry of molecular systems with accuracy. This is pushing the frontiers of what is possible with quantum-centric supercomputing in the field of life sciences research.
The research team includes Kenneth Merz Jr, Akhil Shajan, Danil Kaliakin, Fangchun Liang from Cleveland Clinic; Yuichi Otsuka, Tomonori Shirakawa, Lukas Broers, Han Xu, Miwako Tsuji, Mitsuhisa Sato, Seiji Yunoki from RIKEN Center for Computational Science; and Ryo Wakizaka, Yukio Kawashima, Jun Doi, Hitomi Takahashi, Toshinari Itoko, Hiroshi Horii, Thaddeus Pellegrini, Javier Robledo Moreno, Kevin J. Sung, Ella Fejer, Robert Walkup, Seetharami Seelam, and Mario Motta from IBM.
The work has demonstrated a path to further increasing the accuracy of molecular system calculations and is a step towards better predicting how medicines may interact with protein targets. The team's innovative approach and significant advancements in quantum computing and life sciences research make them a strong contender for the ACM Gordon Bell Prize. The 2026 winner will be announced at the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC26) in Chicago.