Quantum computing firm Alice & Bob has secured a significant $3.9 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E). The funding is designated for a project aimed at designing next-generation permanent magnets without using rare-earth elements. This initiative represents a crucial step toward mitigating supply chain vulnerabilities and advancing sustainable energy technologies.
Addressing a Critical Supply Chain Challenge
High-performance magnets are essential components in technologies central to the global energy transition, including electric motors and wind turbines. However, today's most powerful magnets rely heavily on rare-earth elements, which present significant environmental and geopolitical challenges. The supply chains for these materials are geographically concentrated, creating political constraints and market volatility.
The search for viable alternatives has proven exceptionally difficult due to the complexity of magnetic materials. The dominant neodymium-iron-boron magnet was discovered in the 1980s, and progress since has been slow. The quantum interactions that govern magnetic properties are incredibly challenging for classical computers to simulate accurately, hindering rapid material discovery.
Quantum Computing's Role in Material Discovery
Quantum computers offer a transformative solution by directly modeling the quantum systems that classical machines struggle with. Alice & Bob will leverage its fault-tolerant quantum computing technology to simulate these complex electronic interactions with far greater efficiency. This approach promises to unlock new possibilities in the design of novel materials for high-performance magnets.
The project's primary objective is to achieve a 10,000-fold speed-up compared to current state-of-the-art classical simulations. This acceleration would enable realistic material calculations to be completed within approximately one day, a dramatic reduction in discovery time. Alice & Bob plans to demonstrate this speed-up both experimentally on its quantum hardware and theoretically through resource estimates.
A Collaborative and Hybrid Approach
This ambitious three-year project is a collaborative effort, bringing together experts from multiple disciplines. Alice & Bob will lead the initiative in partnership with Los Alamos National Laboratory, GE Vernova’s Advanced Research accelerator, and Professor Emanuel Gull of the University of Michigan. This consortium combines expertise in quantum algorithms, classical computation, materials science, and industrial application.
The team will employ a hybrid strategy, as explained by Juliette Peyronnet, U.S. General Manager at Alice & Bob. Classical methods will compute environmental parameters while quantum computers simulate the highly correlated electronic systems with greater accuracy. This synergy is expected to significantly accelerate the discovery process for new magnetic materials.
Each partner plays a distinct role in this integrated effort. Los Alamos scientist Marco Cerezo noted his team will develop tensor network tools to optimize quantum circuits for the algorithms. Meanwhile, GE Vernova will perform a technoeconomic analysis to evaluate the industrial opportunities enabled by the new hybrid algorithm.
The successful outcome of this project could revolutionize the magnet industry by accelerating the development of cheaper and more sustainable alternatives. Beyond magnets, the fault-tolerant algorithms developed could be adapted to solve other pressing challenges in chemistry and materials science. This ARPA-E award highlights the growing confidence in quantum computing's potential to deliver practical solutions for critical global issues.