Insider Brief
- Xanadu, in collaboration with the University of Toronto and Canada’s National Research Council, reported a new quantum algorithm that could accelerate the discovery and analysis of next-generation battery materials by enabling simulations beyond classical capabilities.
- The research shows fault-tolerant quantum computers can simulate Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS) processes—key to understanding battery degradation—while reducing computational requirements to fewer than 500 logical qubits for complex materials.
- The study positions quantum computing as a potential tool for battery design pipelines, demonstrating a pathway to stabilize high-capacity lithium-excess cathode materials and improve future energy storage systems.
PRESS RELEASE — Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc. (“Xanadu”), a leading photonic quantum computing company, has today announced a novel quantum computational algorithm to accelerate the discovery and analysis of next-generation battery materials. Published as a pre-print article, Xanadu’s new research, in collaboration with the University of Toronto and the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) as part of the NRC’s Applied Quantum Computing Challenge program, demonstrates how fault-tolerant quantum computers can solve critical challenges to enable the practical application of higher-capacity lithium-excess cathode active materials for lithium batteries.
Resonant Inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) is a powerful tool for characterizing how high-capacity batteries degrade over time, a key component for evaluating their predicted performance. However, the lack of accurate simulations of RIXS spectra limits its usefulness for many practical use cases. This new research shows that quantum algorithms can unlock computational simulations that are beyond the reach of classical methods, accelerating the progress towards discovering next-generation battery materials.
Throughout this work, resource requirements have also been reduced so that it can run on early, utility-scale fault tolerant quantum computers. For a classically challenging example, such as the structures predicted to form in Li-rich NMC cathode active materials, the algorithm would require less than 500 logical qubits to run, well within the expected requirements for early fault-tolerant quantum computers.
“The development of high-energy-density batteries is important for driving the energy demands of the future,” said Christian Weedbrook, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Xanadu. “We believe our results position fault-tolerant quantum computing as an essential tool for the battery industry and next-generation battery materials development.”
“I am very excited about the results of our collaboration with Xanadu and the University of Toronto”, said Dr. Yaser Abu-Lebdeh, co-project lead, senior research officer and team lead of the battery materials innovation team at the NRC’s Clean Energy Innovation Research Center. “Through this partnership, we tackled a key challenge in battery research while demonstrating the transformative potential of quantum computing and simulation through advanced quantum algorithms. By combining our deep expertise in battery materials and electrochemical systems here at the NRC with quantum innovation, we’ve taken an important step toward accelerating the development of next-generation battery technologies.”
This research serves as a foundational step toward a quantum-aided pipeline for battery design, providing a pathway to stabilize next-generation materials for more efficient energy storage. As a partnership between the Government of Canada, private industry, and academia, this research demonstrates that quantum dynamics simulations can unravel undiscovered applications of quantum computing, in particular for battery simulations. Discovering algorithms to simulate quantum dynamics as a native application of quantum computers–which are strong candidates for outperforming classical methods–represents a valuable step forward in Xanadu’s mission to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere.
