Quantum computers are expected to be disruptive and potentially impact many industry sectors. So researchers in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands decided to explore two very different quantum problems: breaking the encryption of Bitcoin (a digital currency) and simulating the molecule responsible for biological nitrogen fixation.

n AVS Quantum Science, from AIP Publishing, the researchers describe a tool they created to determine how big a quantum computer needs to be to solve problems like these and how long it will take.

“The majority of existing work within this realm focuses on a particular hardware platform, superconducting devices, like those IBM and Google are working toward,” said Mark Webber, of the University of Sussex. “Different hardware platforms will vary greatly on key hardware specifications, such as the rate of operations and the quality of control on the qubits (quantum bits).”

Many of the most promising quantum advantage use cases will require an error-corrected quantum computer. Error correction enables running longer algorithms by compensating for inherent errors inside the quantum computer, but it comes at the cost of more physical qubits.

Pulling nitrogen out of the air to make ammonia for fertilizers is extremely energy-intensive, and improvements to the process could impact both world food scarcity and the climate crisis. Simulation of relevant molecules is currently beyond the abilities of even the world’s fastest supercomputers but should be within the reach of next-gen quantum computers.