Cleveland Clinic, IBM Partner to Install First Healthcare Quantum Computer

Cleveland Clinic and IBM announced that the deployment of the first healthcare quantum computer in the US has begun on the health system’s main campus, a key component of the two organizations’ 10-year partnership to advance biomedical research through high-performance computing.

The computer, called IBM Quantum System One, is the first private sector onsite, IBM-managed quantum computer in the country, according to the press release. Its installation at Cleveland Clinic is set to be completed in early 2023. The installation is part of the Cleveland Clinic-IBM Discovery Accelerator, announced in 2021, which aims to leverage Cleveland Clinic’s medical expertise and IBM’s expertise in technology and quantum computing.

As part of the partnership, the organizations will utilize quantum computing, artificial intelligence (AI), and hybrid cloud technology to accelerate biomedical discovery.

“The current pace of scientific discovery is unacceptably slow, while our research needs are growing exponentially,” said Lara Jehi, MD, Cleveland Clinic’s chief research information officer, in the press release. “We cannot afford to continue to spend a decade or more going from a research idea in a lab to therapies on the market. Quantum offers a future to transform this pace, particularly in drug discovery and machine learning.”

Discovery Accelerator researchers have already begun multiple projects that will benefit from the new computational technology.

For instance, using the accelerator as a technology foundation, Cleveland Clinic’s Global Center for Pathogen Research & Human Health will leverage advanced computing to enhance efforts to study, prepare for, and protect against emerging pathogens and virus-related diseases.

Other projects are aimed at developing various quantum computing techniques to screen and optimize drugs targeted to specific proteins, improve prediction models for cardiovascular risk after non-cardiac surgery, and use AI to search genome sequencing data and large drug-target databases to find existing drugs that would be effective in helping patients with Alzheimer’s and other diseases.

A large part of the collaboration between the two organizations is also focused on creating jobs, educating the future workforce, and growing the economy.

To achieve these goals, stakeholders from both organizations have developed an educational curriculum for participants from high school up to the professional level. This curriculum offers training and certification programs in multiple aspects of healthcare-based computational research, including data science, machine learning, and quantum computing.

Over the past few years, quantum computing has seen a growing interest from stakeholders trying to determine how it will impact health IT and research.

In 2020, a research team from the University of Virginia School of Medicine leveraged the technology, alongside machine learning, to gain insights into genetic disease.

Despite this growing interest, however, not all healthcare organizations welcome the advent of quantum computing. Some security experts have shared concerns that the technology may negatively impact encryption, putting personal health information and other sensitive data at risk.