GoKawiilThere are two prize categories. A prize of $2 million will go to any and all teams that can run a significantly useful health care algorithm on computers with 50 or more qubits (a qubit is the basic processing unit in a quantum computer). To win the $5 million grand prize, a team must successfully run a quantum algorithm that solves a significant real-world problem in health care, and the work must use 100 or more qubits. Winners have to meet strict performance criteria, and they must solve a health care problem that can’t be solved with conventional computers—a tough task.
Despite the scale of the challenge, most of the teams think some of this money could be theirs. “I think we’re in with a good shout,” says Jonathan D. Hirst, a computational chemist at the University of Nottingham, UK. “We’re very firmly within the criteria for the $2 million prize,” says Stanford University’s Grant Rotskoff, whose collaboration is investigating the quantum properties of the ATP molecule that powers biological cells.
The grand prize is perhaps less of a sure thing. “This is really at the very edge of doable,” Rotskoff says. Insiders say the challenge is so difficult, given the state of quantum computing technology, that much of the money could stay in Wellcome Leap’s account.
With most of the Q4Bio work unpublished and protected by NDAs, and the quantum computing field already rife with claims and counterclaims about performance and achievements, only the judges will be in a position to decide who’s right.
A hybrid solution
The idea behind quantum computers is that they can use small-scale objects that obey the laws of quantum mechanics, such as atoms and photons of light, to simulate real-world processes too complex to model on our everyday classical machines.
Researchers have been working for decades to build such systems, which could deliver insights for creating new materials, developing pharmaceuticals, and improving chemical processes such as fertilizer production. But dealing with quantum stuff like atoms is excruciatingly difficult. The biggest, shiniest applications require huge, robust machines capable of withstanding the environmental “noise” that can very easily disrupt delicate quantum systems. We don’t have those yet—and it’s unclear when we will.
Wellcome Leap wanted to find out if the smaller-scale machines we have today can be made to do something—anything—useful for health care while we wait for the era of powerful, large-scale quantum computers. The group started the competition in 2024, offering $1.5 million in funding to each group of 12 selected teams.