Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Model a 12,635-Atom Protein - the Largest Known to Be Simulated with Quantum Computers

Milestone simulation of biologically meaningful molecules expands quantum-centric supercomputing's role as a scientific tool

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. and CLEVELAND, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Scientists at Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM (NYSE: IBM) have used IBM quantum computers and two of the world's most powerful supercomputers to simulate protein complexes spanning up to 12,635 atoms. These are the largest-known simulations of biologically meaningful molecules performed with quantum hardware yet, and signal that quantum computers are maturing into useful scientific tools which can help solve fundamental problems in biology, chemistry, and life sciences.

The results were achieved in part by an innovative algorithm that optimizes how quantum and classical computers can work together, a framework known as quantum-centric supercomputing. Using this approach, the team captured the behavior of two biochemically relevant proteins that are roughly 40 times larger than what this same method could initially achieve just six months ago. Additionally, the accuracy of the simulations in a key step of the workflow improved by up to 210 times over this same period.

The decision to explore if quantum computers could offer value in the simulation of protein complexes was motivated by challenges faced today by researchers when studying how a drug candidate could bind to a protein. This can be one of the most difficult and expensive problems in life sciences research, and one that today's existing computational methods have struggled to exactly solve as molecules increase in size. Doing so accurately and early in the discovery process could meaningfully shorten drug development timelines that currently can stretch over a decade and require substantial investment to produce a single medicine.

"This work marks an important advance and underscores quantum computing's emerging role on systems of relevance to drug discovery," said Kenneth Merz, Ph.D., lead author of the study and staff scientist in Cleveland Clinic's Computational Life Sciences Department. "By crossing the 12,000-atom barrier, we have significantly expanded the scale of biologically meaningful molecular simulations possible with quantum computing and demonstrated a framework for applying these methods to scientifically relevant problems at a larger scale."

"For years, quantum computing has been a promise. Now, quantum computers are producing results that matter to science," said Jay Gambetta, Director of IBM Research and IBM Fellow. "The systems we simulated here are the kind of molecules that biologists and chemists work with in the real world. Quantum computers are no longer proving they are viable tools – they are proving they can contribute meaningful results in quantum-centric supercomputing architectures."

The breakthrough research, reported in a pre-print study, builds on a series of milestones from the three institutions. This includes work on the cover of Science Advances that introduced techniques to model electronic states in molecules, first demonstrated on iron sulfides, and more recently, the 303-atom benchmark molecule called Trp-cage – the first-known full quantum-centric simulation made of 20 amino acids.

Quantum and Classical Computers, Working in Tandem

This approach – what IBM calls quantum-centric supercomputing – pairs quantum processors with classical computers so each computational tool can solve the parts of a problem where it excels. In this work, classical computers deconstructed the protein-ligand complexes into computable fragments. IBM's 156-qubit IBM Quantum Heron processors, running within the IBM quantum computers at both Cleveland Clinic in the United States and RIKEN in Japan, calculated the quantum-mechanical behavior of those pieces in tandem with two of the most powerful classical supercomputers – Fugaku at RIKEN and Miyabi-G, operated by the University of Tokyo and the University of Tsukuba. The strength of IBM's quantum hardware was essential to the accuracy and success of the computation, which required up to 94 qubits running nearly 6,000 quantum operations within certain parts of the simulation. Results were reassembled on classical computers to obtain a complete representation of the molecule.

As published on arXiv, the jump in scale was made possible by both algorithmic innovation and access to cutting-edge computing infrastructure. The novel quantum-classical hybrid algorithm, coined EWF-TrimSQD, dramatically reduced computational overhead and accelerated the ability to directly represent the chemistry of these molecular systems on quantum hardware. As a result, the frontier for what is possible with quantum-centric supercomputing has been pushed forward to previously inaccessible molecule sizes, and there is a clear path to further increase the size and accuracy of such calculations.

A Step Towards Drug Discovery

The team views this work as a starting point. Looking ahead, the ability to scale simulations of molecular systems with accuracy is a step towards helping researchers better predict how medicines may interact with protein targets. Computational improvements in drug discovery rest on two fundamental capabilities: first, modeling the movement of atoms as biological processes unfold; and second, accurately computing their energies, for which these results provide evidence that quantum‑centric supercomputing can support.

As quantum computers advance, integrating them into computational workflows could offer higher accuracy in energy calculations at larger scales, and potentially open the door to simulating enzyme catalysts, drug mechanisms, and other molecular behaviors that today can only be studied through experimentation.

More broadly, this breakthrough marks a shift in what quantum computing means to science. For most of its history, the field of quantum computation has measured progress in qubits, gates, and error rates. Now, its capabilities can also be measured by the size and significance of the problems it can help to solve.

For more information on this milestone, visit: https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/cleveland-clinic-riken-chemistry

Research Support

This research is supported by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), an organization under the jurisdiction of Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)'s "Research and Development of Quantum-Supercomputers Hybrid Platform for Exploration of Uncharted Computable Capabilities" (Project Leader: Mitsuhisa Sato) as part of the "Project for Research and Development of Enhanced Infrastructures for Post 5G Information and Communications Systems (JPNP20017)."

About IBM

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider, helping clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.
For more information, visit https://research.ibm.com.

About Cleveland Clinic

Cleveland Clinic is a nonprofit multispecialty academic medical center that integrates clinical and hospital care with research and education. Founded in 1921 by four renowned physicians with a vision of providing outstanding patient care based upon the principles of cooperation, compassion and innovation, Cleveland Clinic has pioneered many medical breakthroughs, including coronary artery bypass surgery and the first face transplant in the United States. Cleveland Clinic is consistently recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world for its expertise and care. Among Cleveland Clinic's 83,000 employees worldwide are more than 6,600 salaried physicians and researchers, and 21,900 registered nurses and advanced practice providers, representing 140 medical specialties and subspecialties. Cleveland Clinic is a 6,725-bed health system that includes a 173-acre main campus near downtown Cleveland, 23 hospitals, 300 outpatient facilities, including locations in northeast Ohio; Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; Toronto, Canada; Abu Dhabi, UAE; and London, England. In 2025, there were 15.9 million outpatient encounters, 343,000 hospital admissions and observations, and 336,000 surgeries and procedures throughout Cleveland Clinic's health system. Visit us at clevelandclinic.org. Follow us at x.com/CleClinicNews. News and resources are available at newsroom.clevelandclinic.org.

Media contacts

Brittany Forgione
IBM
Brittany.Forgione@ibm.com

Erin Angelini
IBM Research Communications
edlehr@us.ibm.com

Alicia Reale-Cooney
Cleveland Clinic
realeca@ccf.org  
216.408.7444

 

 

 

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Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Model a 12,635-Atom Protein - the Largest Known to Be Simulated with Quantum Computers

Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Model a 12,635-Atom Protein - the Largest Known to Be Simulated with Quantum Computers

Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Model a 12,635-Atom Protein - the Largest Known to Be Simulated with Quantum Computers

Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Model a 12,635-Atom Protein - the Largest Known to Be Simulated with Quantum Computers

New capabilities help enterprises, governments, and service providers operationalize digital sovereignty with continuous compliance and control across hybrid environments

BOSTON, May 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- At Think 2026, IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the general availability of IBM Sovereign Core, a new software platform designed to help organizations build and operate AI-ready sovereign environments and verify their control — giving enterprises and governments an end-to-end approach to digital sovereignty.

As AI adoption accelerates, digital sovereignty has become a critical requirement, extending beyond data residency to include control over infrastructure, operations, and AI systems. Organizations must balance maintaining necessary authority with the pace of innovation, while facing increasing scrutiny from regulators, auditors, and boards. Yet most platforms can struggle to provide consistent, auditable answers to these requirements — creating a gap between policy and operational reality.

"AI has made sovereignty a runtime requirement, not a policy statement. With IBM Sovereign Core, organizations don't have to choose between deploying AI at speed and verifying their control. Sovereignty shouldn't be a constraint on innovation — with the right software foundation, it's an enabler of it," said Dinesh Nirmal, SVP, IBM Software.

Defining Digital Sovereignty for the AI Era
IBM defines digital sovereignty across four pillars:

• Operational Sovereignty — Control over how environments are operated
• Data Sovereignty — Control over data at rest, in use, and in motion
• Technology Sovereignty — Open, modular architecture that avoids vendor lock-in
• AI Sovereignty — Control over where models run and how inference is governed

Together, these pillars form the foundation of IBM's unified approach to digital sovereignty—bringing control across operations, data, technology, and AI.

A Unified Approach for Digital Sovereignty
IBM Sovereign Core introduces a new model for operational sovereignty, where governance, compliance, and control are built into the system from the start to enable organizations to scale AI while maintaining their sovereignty, trust, and operational independence. IBM Sovereign Core delivers an integrated sovereign software platform that combines control plane, identity, security, compliance, and AI execution functions operate within a single deployment model.

Key capabilities include:

• Customer-operated control plane enabling full authority over configuration, operations, and lifecycle management
• In-boundary identity, encryption, and data services, ensuring all access, secrets, keys, logs, and audit evidence remain under customer control
• Continuous compliance monitoring and evidence generation, providing real-time audit readiness
• Preloaded regulatory frameworks to accelerate company defined compliance postures across regions and industries
• Governed AI execution, ensuring models, inference, and agent operations run within defined sovereign boundaries
• Open, modular architecture built on open standards, supporting portability and avoiding vendor lock-in

Together, these capabilities establish a sovereign control plane that enables organizations to operate environments and verify their control across data, operations, and AI.

Continuous, Verifiable Compliance
IBM Sovereign Core enables organizations to move from static compliance models to dynamic continuous, verifiable compliance models that are verifiable. Integrated monitoring, drift detection, and automated evidence generation allow organizations to:

• Validate compliance in real time
• Maintain audit-ready evidence within the sovereign boundary
• Reduce reliance on manual validation and point-in-time audits

This ensures sovereignty is not only defined, but observable, enforceable, and provable at scale.

AI Governance Within Your Sovereign Boundary
As AI systems become central to enterprise operations, governance must extend beyond data to include models, inference, and agent behavior. IBM Sovereign Core enables organizations to deploy and operate AI models, agents, and inference workloads entirely within the sovereign boundary, ensuring their:

• Control over where AI processing occurs
• Traceability of model execution and decisions
• Governance over access, updates, and lifecycle management

This ensures that AI systems operate with accountability, transparency, and control, even in highly regulated environments.

Extensible Ecosystem and Deployment Flexibility

Built on open, enterprise-grade technologies like Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat AI, IBM Sovereign Core enables organizations to extend existing investments across hybrid and partner environments.

 IBM Sovereign Core includes an extensible catalog that organizations can curate for their own users, with their own applications, or populated with pre-vetted IBM, third-party and open source software and services from an ecosystem of software and infrastructure partners that includes: AMD, ATOS, Cegeka, Cloudera, Dell, Elastic, HCL, Intel, Mistral, MongoDB, and Palo Alto Networks.

CPU, GPU, and AI inference environments can be provisioned using standardized templates and automated configuration profiles, enabling teams to deploy and manage workloads consistently across sovereign regions while maintaining alignment to their compliance and sovereignty requirements.

Designed for Regulated Regions, Enterprises and Governments
IBM Sovereign Core is designed for organizations that require greater control, flexibility, and compliance across sensitive workloads.

• Enterprises can run regulated applications and AI workloads within controlled environments
• Governments and public sector organizations can support sovereign operations for critical services
• Service providers and regional cloud operators can deliver sovereign cloud and AI services at scale

Across these use cases, IBM Sovereign Core enables organizations to innovate with AI while maintaining demonstrable authority over their systems, data, and operations. IBM Sovereign Core is now generally available.

Supporting Quotes
"Control and compliance have long been barriers to enterprise AI adoption," said Marjorie Janiewicz, Chief Revenue Officer at Mistral AI. "IBM Sovereign Core delivers a ready-to-deploy foundation that allows our models to operate within trusted boundaries from day one, enabling organizations to accelerate AI adoption while maintaining full control over their data. We're pleased to be the first model provider partner for Sovereign Core to certify our frontier models and support enterprise customers globally."

"AI is reshaping how nations, governments and enterprises operate, making digital sovereignty not just a policy discussion, but a leadership priority," said Philip Guido, EVP & Chief Commercial Officer, AMD. "As organizations deploy AI at scale, control over technology becomes increasingly critical. Together with IBM and Red Hat, we're enabling clients to exercise greater autonomy and flexibility in their digital sovereignty choices across the full IT stack through an open, secure and transparent approach."

"As organizations navigate increasingly complex compliance and regulatory requirements, we're seeing strong demand for digital platforms and software that allows sensitive data to remain within controlled, compliant boundaries," said Gaetan Willems, VP Cloud & Digital Platforms, Cegeka. "Partnering with IBM to offer a pre-architected solution through our in-country environment enables us to deliver enterprise-ready software to our clients, while allowing them to address local compliance standards."

"As part of our strategic alliance with IBM, Deloitte is focused on enabling a Sovereign Core technology stack that supports clients in building secure, scalable, and compliant cloud ecosystems. Leveraging IBM's platform capabilities alongside Deloitte's deep regulatory and transformation expertise, we help organizations address critical imperatives such as data localization, security, regulatory compliance, and India's DPDP requirements."  — Vinay Prabhakar  Chief Commercial Officer Deloitte AP & National Sales & Alliances Leader Deloitte South Asia

"India deserves cloud infrastructure that is sovereign by design. At NxtGen, that has always been our operating principle and our promise to customers: superior performance, lower TCO, and zero trade-offs on compliance. The IBM Sovereign Core collaboration is a direct expression of that commitment, bringing secure, compliant cloud capabilities built for India's regulatory reality." — A S Rajgopal, MD & CEO, NxtGen

"The ability to establish—and prove—control over data, models and operations is quickly becoming a differentiator for trust, resilience and innovation in AI adoption," said Bill Pearson, vice president of data center and AI software, Intel Data Center Group. "Establishing sovereign AI frameworks, spanning open hybrid architectures and transparent governance, requires a foundation built for performance, security, and control. Intel continues to innovate with technologies such as Intel Xeon 6 processors and Intel TDX to provide in‑use protection for data and AI workloads across environments with CPU and GPUs to support sovereign infrastructure initiatives like IBM Sovereign Core."

Supporting Materials
Blog: IBM Sovereign Core: The new end to end system for Sovereign AI
IBM Sovereign Core Product Page
IBM Sovereign Core Ecosystem Catalog
IBM Sovereign Core Compliance Center
Statement of Direction for IBM Sovereign Core

About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

Visit www.ibm.com for more information.

Media contact:

Kate Lehman
IBM
Kate.Lehman@ibm.com

 

** This press release is distributed by PR Newswire through automated distribution system, for which the client assumes full responsibility. **

Think 2026: IBM Makes Digital Sovereignty Operational with General Availability of IBM Sovereign Core