One of the most promising things quantum computing offers is it’s applications in chemistry. The ability to understand what goes on at such a small scale will potentially help us accelerate the drug discovery process.

However, we are pretty far away from creating a universal quantum computer that can handle all types of chemical simulations. But the good thing is that we still have promising near term applications in chemistry, by using algorithms that compute using both classical and quantum technology, the most notable being the Variational Quantum Eigensolver.

This QML algorithm is able to approximate the groundstate energy of LiH to chemical accuracy. Check it out!