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IBM AI Medicine

IBM Installs World's First Quantum Computer for Accelerating Healthcare Research (insidehpc.com) 44

It's one of America's best hospitals — a nonprofit "academic medical center" called the Cleveland Clinic. And this week it installed an IBM-managed quantum computer to accelerate healthcare research (according to an announcement from IBM). IBM is calling it "the first quantum computer in the world to be uniquely dedicated to healthcare research."

The clinic's CEO said the technology "holds tremendous promise in revolutionizing healthcare and expediting progress toward new cares, cures and solutions for patients." IBM's CEO added that "By combining the power of quantum computing, artificial intelligence and other next-generation technologies with Cleveland Clinic's world-renowned leadership in healthcare and life sciences, we hope to ignite a new era of accelerated discovery."

em>Inside HPC points out that "IBM Quantum System One" is part of a larger biomedical research program applying high-performance computing, AI, and quantum computing, with IBM and the Cleveland Clinic "collaborating closely on a robust portfolio of projects with these advanced technologies to generate and analyze massive amounts of data to enhance research." The Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator has generated multiple projects that leverage the latest in quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud to help expedite discoveries in biomedical research. These include:

- Development of quantum computing pipelines to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins;

- Improvement of a quantum-enhanced prediction model for cardiovascular risk following non-cardiac surgery;

- Application of artificial intelligence to search genome sequencing findings and large drug-target databases to find effective, existing drugs that could help patients with Alzheimer's and other diseases.


The Discovery Accelerator also serves as the technology foundation for Cleveland Clinic's Global Center for Pathogen & Human Health Research, part of the Cleveland Innovation District. The center, supported by a $500 million investment from the State of Ohio, Jobs Ohio and Cleveland Clinic, brings together a team focused on studying, preparing and protecting against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases. Through the Discovery Accelerator, researchers are leveraging advanced computational technology to expedite critical research into treatments and vaccines.

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IBM Installs World's First Quantum Computer for Accelerating Healthcare Research

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  • by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Saturday March 25, 2023 @08:59PM (#63399447)
    Seems like another get paid again to deliver with new fill in the blank fad. IBM Quantum Health Care solutions anyone.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Watson is still useful. But it is more like a more mature, exact (no hallucinations) and real-time update capable version of ChatGPT. A lot less eloquent sounding though.

  • by LondoMollari ( 172563 ) on Saturday March 25, 2023 @09:27PM (#63399485) Homepage

    IBM Q is the company's new S/360 moment. They can decide to bet it all on a new technology, or play it safe and slowly wither away. Bold decisions are needed but so far the company has quickly stopped and shy-ed away from projects at the slightest sign of non-profitability. Watson comes to mind.

    • nonsense, IBM's normal machines use tech that is bleeding edge. Wintel crap is utter garbage next to POWER line, for example.

    • S360 was a huge bet that no one else was brave enough to do at the time.

      Everything IBM has tried to do since then has been chasing everyone else.
  • by sjames ( 1099 ) on Saturday March 25, 2023 @10:31PM (#63399551) Homepage Journal

    It sounds like there is no current application, just a bunch of hand waving about things that might be. I hope the Clinic had the sense to make sure IBM's PR department is footing the bill.

    Even IBM's own website just shows the frame being assembled, "Oooooh, look, shiny things".

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That sounds like a fair assessment to me. Hand waving and some virtue signalling but no substance at all.

    • The Cleveland Clinic foundation can afford to pay for it. They could probably pay for it with just one year worth of the property tax (which they don't pay) on their Cleveland Ohio properties.
      • The installation of the world's first quantum computer for healthcare research is a significant breakthrough in the field of science and medicine. It will undoubtedly have a lasting impact on the industry and pave the way for further advancements in healthcare. As a result, it is not unlikely that future medical students will study the biography [happyessays.com] of the person responsible for this achievement. For those who need help improving their essay-writing skills or require assistance with homework assignments, happye
    • I wonder what the electricity bill will be.
      • by sjames ( 1099 )

        Considering how cold it has to keep the qbits, I'm guessing the power bill for the refrigeration alone is quite 'impressive'.

  • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Saturday March 25, 2023 @10:31PM (#63399553) Journal
    What exactly does IBM mean here when they say they are using Quantum computing? What aspect of quantum computing is it exactly?
    • by godrik ( 1287354 )

      wondering myself. The article says in IBM Q system one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
      But I can't quite tell what it is even from the wikipedia page.
      In particular I can't tell whether it is quantum annealing or something that looks like a universal quantum computer. Seems like it is programmed in qiskit. So it seems like it is more like a UQC.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        My main observation is that they avoid telling you anything concrete. I tried to find out how few effective qbits those 400 raw qbits claimed really are (raw qbits are basically useless and effective ones are a _lot_ fewer), but found nothing. Methinks IBM is trying rather hard to trick the public into thinking they have anything worthwhile when they do not.

        • So pretty much standard operating procedure for IBM!
        • Number of qbits seems to increase steadily but they don't seem to be the qbits we were expecting. Somebody also claim quantum supremacy regularly usually by creating some problem which looks more like a physical experiment fitting their installation than something really computable.
  • by mkwan ( 2589113 ) on Saturday March 25, 2023 @10:40PM (#63399565)

    I know that Shor's algorithm can factorize integers (and thus break RSA encryption), and Grover's algorithm can find an answer in O(sqrt(N)) instead of O(N), but are there any practical applications beyond codebreaking?

    I've heard hand-waving claims about drug discovery, but is algorithmic complexity really the limiting factor? And is quantum computing a viable solution? Grover's algorithm doesn't seem like enough of an improvement to be worth the hassle.

    • There are some potential applications when studying quantum systems, modeling the behavior of large molecules, protein folding and similar. As far as I know the current generation of quantum computers are not yet able to solve useful problems of this type, but it could happen in the future. Note "could" as there are also some well reasoned arguments that quantum computers will never be practical.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      At the moment the limiting factor is both effective qbits (a _lot_ less than the raw qbits) and calculation dept. Both seem to have a really bad impact on coherence being kept and if you lose coherence during a quantum computation, you lose everything and need to start from the beginning. By really bad, I mean potentially exponential effort to get them higher. And that means these machines may never scale to any useful size or calculation dept. Just to give you an example, to break RSA 4096 (current recomme

    • DeepMind's success at protein folding shows that quantum computing is probably not necessary when it comes to drug discovery.

      Software neural networks are basically in their infancy, and they pale in comparison to biological neural networks. The closer we get to replicating the physical (hence chemical) structure of biological neural networks, the more powerful they will become.
  • The article reads like a list of every vaporware hype tech in existence - the latest in quantum computing, AI and hybrid cloud to help expedite discoveries in biomedical research.

  • They still do not have anything that really works or does anything useful. So they are now faking it and throw "healthcare research" as a virtue signal in there. Pathetic.

  • If it sounds like BS and looks like BS, it is likely BS. There may be a commercial use for quantum computers in 30 years, but now not so much.
  • I've been an organic chemist for 45 years doing drug discovery mostly doing organic synthesis. I've also dabbled in modeling over much of that time. I have no idea what they even plan to do with this. IBM's record here is pretty sketchy. Can you even use Quantum Computing to do this stuff? Gobbledygook!
  • So I can complete my buzz word bingo card.

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