Google performed the first quantum simulation of a chemical reaction

A team at Google has used the companys Sycamore device to perform the first accurate quantum simulation of a chemical reaction.

For the computers latest feat, the researchers simulated a diazene molecule, which consists of two nitrogen atoms and two hydrogen atoms, undergoing a reaction in which the hydrogen atoms move into different configurations around the nitrogens.

While this reaction may be relatively basic, and it isnt necessary to have a quantum computer to simulate it, this work is still a big step forward for quantum computing, says Ryan Babbush at Google.

The prior work consisted of calculations you could basically do with pencil and paper by hand, but the demonstrations were looking at now, youd certainly need a computer to do it.

Scaling this algorithm up to simulate more complex reactions should be fairly easy, says Babbush: simulating reactions in bigger molecules will simply require more qubits and small tweaks to the calculation.