Digitized Counterdiabatic Quantum Algorithm for Protein Folding

We propose a hybrid classical-quantum digitized counterdiabatic algorithm to tackle the protein-folding problem on a tetrahedral lattice. Digitized counterdiabatic quantum computing is a paradigm developed to compress quantum algorithms via the digitization of the counterdiabatic acceleration of a given adi- abatic quantum computation. Finding the lowest-energy configuration of the amino-acid sequence is an NP-hard optimization problem that plays a prominent role in chemistry, biology, and drug design. We outperform state-of-the-art quantum algorithms using problem-inspired and hardware-efficient variational quantum circuits. We apply our method to proteins with up to nine amino acids, using up to 17 qubits on quantum hardware. Specifically, we benchmark our quantum algorithm with Quantinuum's trapped ions, and Google's and IBM's superconducting circuits, obtaining high success probabilities with low-depth circuits as required in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum era.

Automated summary

We propose a hybrid classical-quantum digitized counterdiabatic algorithm to solve the protein-folding problem on a tetrahedral lattice. Our method outperforms state-of-the-art quantum algorithms using problem-inspired and hardware-efficient variational quantum circuits. We apply our method to proteins with up to nine amino acids, achieving high success probabilities with low-depth circuits on various quantum hardware.