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Quantum Computing article mentions protein folding
Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 10:46 pm
by NookieBandit
I ran across this article in the NY Times regarding Lockheed's use of the D-Wave quantum computer in its business. Interestingly, it mentions the use of a computer like this for possible protein folding. I suspect it will be quite some time before our folding rigs will be obsoleted by quantum computing, but nonetheless it could eventually be a tool PG might find very compelling and yield the answers their seeking in a fraction of the time it now takes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/techn ... .html?_r=0
Re: A glimpse of the future of computing. [URL]
Posted: Fri Mar 22, 2013 11:22 pm
by Jesse_V
Quantum computers are promising, but there's a lot of developmental work to be done on them. It's WAY too early for anyone to start seriously using those as a tool. However, as time goes on, a lot of the underlying problems will be solved, and perhaps we'll start seeing them tackling some exceptionally difficult problems.
Based on the article, I get the impression that protein structure prediction (which involves finding the lowest energy state the protein's configuration could collapse into) would be a problem more applicable to D-Wave computers than actual protein folding, which is more of a study of how the protein gets there. The two are very different problems.