IBM Teams Up with DOE for Quantum-Assisted Research

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has partnered with IBM to develop AI-assisted quantum application development through the Genesis Mission project.

IBM will contribute up to $50 million in access to its quantum systems over the next five years for DOE national laboratories and their research partners, expanding on a national scientific-computing framework that combines AI, classical high-performance computing, quantum computing, scientific instruments, and research data.

The project's goal is to identify and solve complex problems by starting with known quantum algorithms and using an agentic AI research assistant to locate scientific problems in published literature that meet the algorithms' requirements.

A recent collaboration between IBM, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Cleveland Clinic demonstrated this approach, where AI agents searched for candidate materials from a 70-year-old archive of molten-salt research. GPU-accelerated supercomputers modeled the shortlisted materials, while quantum computers were applied to the most computationally complex aspects.

This division of labor aligns with the broader Genesis Mission approach, which includes the development of Lux, an exascale-class system planned for delivery at ORNL in 2026, and Discovery, a future exascale-class system expected to be delivered at ORNL in 2028.