BASEL, Switzerland & SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 16, 2026--
At the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit, Syngenta, a global leader in agricultural innovation, today announced it is exploring how quantum computing can help farmers meet the growing demands of food production in a changing climate. The company has partnered with QuantumBasel, Switzerland's first commercial quantum computing hub, to apply quantum technologies to agricultural research and development.
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Farmers worldwide face mounting pressure to produce more food sustainably amid unpredictable weather and evolving pest and disease challenges. Meeting these demands requires new scientific approaches that go beyond what classical computing can deliver, particularly when it comes to understanding the complex molecular and biological systems that underpin crop science.
Developing safe, effective, and sustainable crop protection products requires understanding molecular interactions of extraordinary complexity that classical computers can only approximate. Quantum computing has the future potential to model this complexity with far greater precision, and to predict details about molecular behaviour that have previously been out of reach, bringing new insights into product design and opening new pathways for innovation in agriculture.
To help realize this potential, Syngenta is launching a collaboration with QuantumBasel in Basel, Switzerland – a co-located working model that brings together QuantumBasel’s algorithmic expertise and access to advanced hardware and simulators with Syngenta’s scientists and agricultural R&D capabilities. Initial projects will aim to deepen our understanding of molecular behaviour with insights that could unlock new approaches to discovery and crop science.
"Quantum computing could be a catalyst for the next generation of scientific breakthroughs in agriculture," says Feroz Sheikh, Chief Information and Digital Officer, Syngenta Group. “It has the future potential to give us a deeper understanding of molecular interactions than has ever been possible, delivering insights and solutions that can help growers meet the challenges of a changing world.”
Quantum computing is an emerging technology with significant long-term potential in molecular modelling, AI and beyond. As the technology matures, Syngenta will be well-positioned to explore its application to some of the most complex challenges in crop science, and build the expertise and partnerships needed to apply it meaningfully in agricultural research.
Thomas Landolt, CEO QuantumBasel, says: "Our mission is to apply quantum computing capabilities to industry, and agriculture is one of the most exciting frontiers. By combining QuantumBasel's quantum computing know-how and infrastructure with Syngenta's deep agricultural expertise, we can help growers benefit from faster research cycles, better crop resilience, and more sustainable farming practices. We are excited for the chance to create an impact where it really matters."
About QuantumBasel
QuantumBasel is a competence center for quantum computing and AI and drives access to commercial quantum computing to foster innovation. QuantumBasel is Switzerland’s first and so far only commercial quantum computing hub. QuantumBasel’s team of quantum and data scientists trains and supports companies, conducts projects in quantum computing and AI, and collaborates closely with universities and academic institutions. Through an internationally connected ecosystem, QuantumBasel provides access to advanced know-how and technologies, enabling companies across a variety of industries to achieve innovations through the next generation of information technology. www.quantumbasel.com
About Syngenta
Syngenta is a global leader in agricultural innovation with a presence in more than 90 countries. Syngenta is focused on developing technologies and farming practices that empower farmers, so they can make the transformation required to feed the world’s population while preserving our planet. Its bold scientific discoveries deliver better benefits for farmers and society on a bigger scale than ever before. Guided by its Sustainability Priorities, Syngenta is developing new technologies and solutions that support farmers to grow healthier plants in healthier soil with a higher yield. Syngenta Crop Protection is headquartered in Basel, Switzerland; Syngenta Seeds is headquartered in the United States. Read our stories and follow us on LinkedIn, Instagram & X.
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Syngenta’s Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This document may contain forward-looking statements, which can be identified by terminology such as ‘expect’, ‘would’, ‘will’, ‘potential’, ‘plans’, ‘prospects’, ‘estimated’, ‘aiming’, ‘on track’ and similar expressions. Such statements may be subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from these statements. For Syngenta, such risks and uncertainties include risks relating to legal proceedings, regulatory approvals, new product development, increasing competition, customer credit risk, general economic and market conditions, compliance and remediation, intellectual property rights, implementation of organizational changes, impairment of intangible assets, consumer perceptions of genetically modified crops and organisms or crop protection chemicals, climatic variations, fluctuations in exchange rates and/or commodity prices, single source supply arrangements, political uncertainty, natural disasters, and breaches of data security or other disruptions of information technology. Syngenta assumes no obligation to update forward-looking statements to reflect actual results, changed assumptions or other factors.
©2026 Syngenta. Rosentalstrasse 67, 4058 Basel, Switzerland.
Ion trap, which uses electromagnetic fields to confine and control ions for use as quantum bits (qubits).
This Oscar cycle's heavyweight battle is finally over. The politically charged action comedy “One Battle After Another” just managed to outmuscle Ryan Coogler’s musically driven vampire thriller “Sinners.”
It was a 3 hour and 40 minute whirl through cinema and celebration, with Michael B. Jordan winning best actor for “Sinners” and Jessie Buckley winning for “Hamnet,” making her the first Irish performer to ever win in the category.
There was electricity when Autumn Durald Arkapaw became the first woman and Black person to win the cinematography award for “Sinners,” asking all the women in the Dolby Theatre to stand up because moments like this don’t happen without women "standing up for you and advocating for you.”
Here were some other show highlights:
Paul Thomas Anderson, one of the most respected filmmakers of his generation, finally won an Oscar. Then he won another. Then he won for best picture.
He first won best adapted screenplay for “One Battle After Another” and then was crowned best director. “You make a guy work hard for this,” he said. Anderson was back onstage for the night's final award — best picture.
“Let's have a martini. This is amazing,” he said.
Anderson had been nominated 14 times previously, including five times for screenplays and three times for best director. His films include “Boogie Nights,” “There Will Be Blood” and “Magnolia.”
“I wrote this movie for my kids, to say sorry for the housekeeping mess that we left in this world we’re handing off to them,” Anderson said onstage after winning for his screenplay. “But also with the encouragement that they will be the generation that hopefully brings us some common sense and decency.”
Even Cassandra Kulukundis, who served as the casting director on past Anderson films, hoped he would win an award himself while accepting the first new completive Oscar category in over two decades for “One Battle After Another.”
She beat him to a win by just minutes.
Amy Madigan, the night’s first winner, had to wait a long time to celebrate an Oscar win. The gap between her first ever Oscar nomination and first win was 40 years — handing her the record wait for a best supporting actress.
Madigan’s first Oscar nomination was for 1985’s “Twice in a Lifetime,” losing to Anjelica Huston. She won Sunday for playing an unrecognizable and utterly mesmerizing oddball aunt in “Weapons,” a supernatural thriller about missing children. Madigan had earlier picked up wins at the Critics Choice and Actor Awards.
Aunt Gladys’ smeared, heavy makeup, strange hair and large glasses became a popular internet meme and was even played up by Oscars host Conan O’Brien in his opening skit, looking like Gladys as he raced through appearances in other nominated movies chased by children.
On hearing her name, Madigan collapsed into the arms of her husband, actor Ed Harris. Onstage, she thanked film writer-director Zach Cregger for giving her a part in “Weapons” she could “grab by the throat.” She last thanked “my beloved Ed,” adding: “None of this would mean anything if he wasn’t by my side.”
A stage of stars bid farewell to Rob Reiner, led by a long friend and colleague, Billy Crystal.
Crystal kicked off the in memoriam section by saying he met Reiner while cast as a best friend of Reiner's on “All in the Family” in 1975.
Reiner’s movies included “This Is Spinal Tap,” “Stand By Me,” “When Harry Met Sally...,” “Misery,” “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride.”
“My friend Rob’s movies will last for lifetimes because they were about what makes us laugh and cry and what we aspire to be: Far better in his eyes, far kinder, far funnier and far more human,” Crystal said.
Reiner was killed along with his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, in December. Their son, Nick Reiner, has been charged with two counts of murder.
After Crystal's speech, he revealed a stage filled with stars who shone in Reiner's films, including Meg Ryan, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, Kathy Bates, Kiefer Sutherland, Demi Moore, Jerry O’Connell, Annette Bening, Mandy Patinkin, Fred Savage and Cary Elwes.
The in memoriam section then highlighted those lost during 2025, like Catherine O’Hara, Diane Keaton, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, Brigitte Bardot, Michael Madsen, Terence Stamp, Diane Ladd, Sally Kirkland, Tom Stoppard, Malcolm-Jamal Warner and Val Kilmer.
Barbra Streisand then stepped up to honor her co-star in “The Way We Were,” Robert Redford.
“He was thoughtful and bold. I called him an intellectual cowboy who blazed his own trail, and won the Academy Award for best director, and I miss him now more than ever, even though he loved teasing me,” Streisand said.
She then sang a snippet of “The Way We Were,” which she last performed during the 2013 ceremony, when she sang it as an homage to the late composer Marvin Hamlisch.
The Oscars had only two musical numbers but they were Grammy-worthy.
Singer-actor Miles Caton and songwriter Raphael Saadiq performed the deeply bluesy, slinky song “I Lied to You” from “Sinners,” joined by an ensemble that included Misty Copeland, Eric Gales, Buddy Guy, Brittany Howard, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, Bobby Rush, Shaboozey and Alice Smith in a tribute to the film’s visual and musical style.
The camera swept in and among the writhing bodies in a rollicking, kinetic performance.
“KPop Demon Hunters” later celebrated its win as best animated feature by opening its performance of “Golden” with a fusion of traditional Korean instrumentalists and dance, with dancers in gold waving golden fabric flags. Then Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami — the singing voices behind HUNTR/X in the film — belted out “Golden” as members of the audience waved light sticks.
Then “Golden” won the Oscar for best original song, a first for K-pop.
The coolest part was seeing dancers from each song appear in the other's, a kind of communication between Delta blues and Asian pop.
Melissa McCarthy, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Kristen Wiig and Ellie Kemper celebrated 15 years after “Bridesmaids” hit theaters by showing everyone their funny bones haven't aged.
“Now, we are not good with numbers, but we figured out backstage that means we shot this movie in 1883,” Wiig joked.
The group — presenting best original score and best sound — had fun at the expense of Stellan Skarsgård, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jacobi Jupe of “Hamnet.”
They pretended to read messages from the crowd, including one from DiCaprio that accused Byrne of staring at him. “I have been staring at you,” Byrne replied. “I thought you were somebody else.”
Rudolph leaned into her dimwit persona when she wondered: “Earlier today, when I was counting my money, I asked myself, “What is sound?”
There was also a mini-“Avengers” reunion with Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. presenting best adapted screenplay. And a “Moulin Rouge!” reunion with Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. And there was a Pullman family reunion when Bill teamed up with son, Jack.
Conan O'Brien hit almost every note on Sunday — savage, playful, heartfelt and dumb.
The second-time host predicted he'd be the last human Oscar MC. “Next year, it will be a Waymo with a tux,” he joked.
He also had a jab at Timothée Chalamet, who got into hot water when he seemed to call ballet and opera dying art forms. “They’re just mad you left out jazz,” O’Brien quipped.
He reached for a Jeffrey Epstein joke when he noted that it was the first time since 2012 that there were no British actors nominated. “A British spokesperson said, ‘Yeah, well at least we arrest our pedophiles.’”
But he also got poetic and sweet when he noted that 31 countries across six continents were represented at the Oscars.
“Every film we salute is a product of thousands of people speaking different language, working hard to make something of beauty,” O’Brien said. “We pay tribute tonight, not just to film, but to the ideals of global artistry, collaboration, patience, resilience and that rarest of qualities today: optimism.”
Of course, sometimes his bits fell flat, like the time he used a leaf blower onstage and a gag about memes with Leonardo DiCaprio.
For more coverage of this year’s Oscars, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/academy-awards
Host Conan O'Brien, left, and Sterling K. Brown perform during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Rei Ami, from left, EJAE, and Audrey Nuna perform 'Golden' from "K-Pop Demon Hunters" during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
CORRECTS SPELLING OF MICHELE- Billy Crystal presents a tribute about Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Melissa McCarthy, from left, Rose Byrne, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, and Ellie Kemper present the award for best original score during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Amy Madigan accepts the award for actress in a supporting role for "Weapons" during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Paul Thomas Anderson accepts the award for directing for "One Battle After Another" during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Miles Caton, far left, performs 'I Lied to You' from "Sinners" with Jayme Lawson, Li Jun Li, and Wunmi Mosaku during the Oscars on Sunday, March 15, 2026, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
