Fujitsu, Barcelona Center to Collaborate on Quantum Simulation, Personalized Medicine

Fujitsu and the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) have signed an agreement to collaborate on using quantum computing to develop personalized medicine.

They plan to start work in May on two research projects to exploit clinical data and advance quantum simulation technologies using tensor networks.

Precision Medicine

The first project aims to enable precision diagnostic medicine using different types of data from molecular features in the genome to large-scale features in X-ray images. Fujitsu and IBM aim to improve disease detection rates and reduce the burden on doctors when diagnosing diseases.

BSC’s life sciences department will contribute its expertise in natural language processing of medical records, genomics, and multi-layer networks. This will combine with Fujitsu’s existing research in genomics AI, large-scale causal discovery, computer vision and HPC high-speed computing technology. They aim to create a large-scale multimodal AI technology for precision medicine using medical data.

They also intend to develop biomedicine digital twins using genomics, and medical and imaging data as input for models of biological processes and cellular interactions.

Quantum Computing Simulation

The second project aims to better simulate quantum circuits using tensor networks. Scaling quantum circuits is currently challenging as current quantum simulators double the memory required for each qubit added to a quantum circuit size.

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Tensor networks are mathematical representations of quantum states based on their entanglement structure. The researchers intend to use them to reduce the computational complexity of quantum circuits. They aim to develop a quantum simulator that can perform large-scale quantum circuit calculations with the same memory capacity as before, simulating current quantum devices.

In a second phase, BSC and Fujitsu plan to apply the results to relevant industrial customer problems, including studying potential applications of quantum circuit simulation.

“This dual agreement with Fujitsu, which is the culmination of years of mutual collaboration, allows us to advance research in two important areas such as personalized medicine and quantum computing,” said BSC director Mateo Valero. “We hope that this joint research will result in new technologies that can ultimately benefit society.”

“We are excited to collaborate with BSC to accelerate R&D on multimodal AI and quantum simulators,” added Fujitsu chief technology officer Vivek Mahajan. “We will build on this joint research program to further strengthen our lineup of advanced computing and AI technologies and develop new practical applications.”