(298h) Perspectives on Quantum Computing for Chemical Engineering: A Joint View from Academia and Industry

Quantum computing has been attracting public attention recently. This interest is driven by the advancements in hardware, software, and algorithms required for its successful usage and the promise that it entails the potential acceleration of computational tasks compared to classical computing. This perspective talk presents a short review of quantum computing, how this computational approach solves problems, and three fields that quantum computing can potentially impact the most while relevant to chemical engineering: computational chemistry, optimization, and machine learning. Here we present a series of chemical engineering applications, the developments, potential improvements with respect to classical computing, and challenges that quantum computing faces in each field. This talk intends to provide a clear picture of the challenges and potential advantages that quantum technology may yield for chemical engineering, together with an invitation for our colleagues to join us in the adoption and development of quantum computing.

This presentation corresponds to the recent invited publication on Perspectives on Quantum Computing for Chemical Engineering at the AIChE Journal https://doi.org/10.1002/aic.17651