IBM and Cleveland Clinic unveil quantum computer to develop drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's and other serious diseases

The IBM Quantum System One computer is part of a ten-year research collaboration between the companies. Among the first research projects - a study to find existing drugs for Alzheimer's patients and other diseases, led by Prof. Michal Rosen-Zvi from the IBM research laboratory in Israel

IBM and the Institute of Medical Research Cleveland Clinic Revealed tonight the first quantum computer in the world that is uniquely dedicated to medical research and accelerating scientific discoveries in the field of medicine. This is also the first time that a privately owned quantum computer has been revealed in the United States, although the computer, an IBM Quantum System One model, will be managed by IBM under an agreement Research collaboration for a decade between the two companies.

The collaboration focuses on accelerating biomedical research through the use of supercomputing, artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Among the first studies to be conducted as part of the agreement will be research on Alzheimer's that will be led by Prof. Michal Rosen-Zvi, head of artificial intelligence research for the field of medicine and life sciences at the IBM research laboratory.

Quantum computing is a rapidly developing technology that harnesses the laws of quantum mechanics to solve problems that today's most powerful supercomputers cannot practically solve. The ability to take advantage of these new computational spaces can help researchers identify new drugs and treatments more quickly.

"This is a major milestone in our partnership with IBM as we explore new ways to apply the power of quantum computing in healthcare," said Dr. Tom Mihailewicz, CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic and Executive Chairman of the Morton L. Mendel. "This technology holds enormous promise in revolutionizing healthcare and accelerating progress towards new treatments, medicines and solutions for our patients. Quantum computing and other advanced computing technologies will help researchers to deal with historical scientific bottlenecks, and will make it possible to find new treatments for patients with diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer's and diabetes."

"The launch of IBM Quantum System One at the Cleveland Clinic, along with their team of leading researchers, will enable the exploration and discovery of new scientific advances in biomedical research," said Arvind Krishna, Chairman and CEO of IBM. "The combination of the power of quantum computing, artificial intelligence and other innovative technologies and the scientific-medical leadership of the Cleveland Clinic will accelerate a new era of scientific discovery."

In addition to a quantum computer, the Science Acceleration Program at Cleveland Clinic will also use a variety of new IBM computing technologies, including hybrid cloud supercomputing and artificial intelligence. Researchers from both organizations have already begun collaborating on research projects using these advanced technologies to generate and analyze massive amounts of data and accelerate the pace of research. 

These are, among other things, projects to leverage quantum computing for the purpose of sorting and optimizing drugs designed to communicate with specific target proteins; Improving the prediction model for risks related to cardiovascular functions following non-cardiac surgery; and the use of artificial intelligence to match genetic sequences and existing drugs, to realize effective treatment for Alzheimer's patients and other diseases - the project led by Prof. Rosen-Zvi.

The new quantum computer that IBM installed at the Cleveland Clinic will make it possible to leverage the most advanced computing technologies to find new drugs for cancer, Alzheimer's and other diseases. For example, it will be possible to use systems that learn from genomic data, libraries of molecules and large databases containing information about patients."