Photo Credit: Infleqtion
When a problem is so complex that finding a solution demands collaboration across academia, industry, government and national laboratories, it becomes known as a Grand Challenge. As companies across the world sprint toward creating useful quantum computers, the quantum industry is facing its grandest challenge yet: developing the algorithms and applications that will run on those computers.
Ultimately, a quantum computer is only as powerful as the instructions it receives – and that’s where algorithms come into play. To spark the development of applications that will have real-world impact, the National Quantum and Algorithm Center (NQAC) — a membership-based organization within the Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park (IQMP) — launched a Grand Challenges program, incentivizing collaboration among Illinois-based academic researchers, quantum companies and industry end users who are developing industry-relevant quantum applications. Awardees were announced in April, and now, the inaugural teams are working to advance real-world applications in critical areas spanning clean energy, power-grid optimization, drug discovery and materials production.
“By pairing world-class academic researchers with quantum companies and major industrial partners, the NQAC is creating exactly the kind of collaborative infrastructure that turns basic science into economic value,” said Harley Johnson, IQMP CEO.
Over the coming months, we’re featuring each NQAC Grand Challenge winner in a Quantum State Stories blog series. First up: Industry Relevant Quantum Algorithms for the Energy Sector.
From the Lab to the Grid
The energy sector is facing one of the toughest challenges of our time: delivering reliable, affordable, low-carbon power from an increasingly complex grid. Conventional computing has taken us far, but many of the sector’s hardest problems are bumping up against fundamental limits in optimization, simulation and materials discovery.
Large-scale optimization (finding the best solution among countless possibilities) and simulation (modeling how complex systems behave) are naturally suited to quantum approaches—if they can be translated into tools that are useful for utility companies.
A Team Built for Impact
The team investigating Industrially Relevant Quantum Algorithms for the Energy Sector is composed of professor Fred Chong, PhD, and researchers at the University of Chicago; quantum technology company Infleqtion; energy provider Constellation; and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). Together, they bring expertise spanning research and operational knowledge to hardware capabilities and commercial deployment.
The roots of this collaboration stretch back nearly a decade to a PhD advisor–student partnership when Infleqtion’s Chief Technology Officer Pranav Gokhale was a PhD student in Professor Chong’s research group at UChicago. Their shared focus: how to make quantum computing useful for real applications.
In 2020, Gokhale and Chong spun out a startup, Super.tech, to translate Chong Group’s research from the lab into tools for quantum programmers. Their mission was clear: accelerate advances in “virtual hardware,” which are software tools that model quantum computers, enabling researchers to design and optimize quantum systems more efficiently before deploying them on physical machines.
After Infleqtion acquired Super.tech in 2022, the team focused on cultivating strong relationships with energy sector leaders like Constellation and EPRI, creating a direct path to apply quantum computing to some of the industry’s toughest challenges.
“The energy sector faces incredibly complex challenges that often require balancing thousands of variables at once,” said Dhirpal Shah, a graduate student studying under Chong who is driving the project. “Today’s power grids must constantly optimize generation, respond to changing demand, maintain reliability and prepare for unexpected disruptions.”
From Research to Real-World Results
Now, in partnership with the NQAC, the team is investigating quantum applications across several areas that matter directly to how we generate, distribute and store energy:
- Power grid optimization – finding the most efficient way to balance electricity supply and demand across a vast network, minimizing cost and waste while keeping the grid stable.
- Grid contingency analysis – modeling what happens when part of the grid unexpectedly fails so operators can plan ahead and restore service faster.
- Battery chemistry research – using quantum simulation to understand energy storage, which could eventually lead to batteries that are cheaper, longer-lasting and more powerful.
- Materials discovery – the search for new materials that conduct electricity with zero energy loss, which could transform how we transmit power, build computers and design medical equipment.
- Advanced sensing – using quantum-enhanced instruments to detect extremely small changes in physical conditions more precisely than today’s technology by monitoring pipelines, infrastructure, and natural resources.
For quantum computing to create real value in the energy sector, solutions must account for safety requirements, regulatory standards, operational constraints and existing infrastructure.
Chong emphasizes that in order to deliver real-world impact, quantum computing should be used where its advantage over classical methods is clear – while accounting for practical engineering and regulatory limits from the beginning. In sectors like energy, he said, success depends on grounding solutions in the realities of system performance, like operating temperatures, pressures, space limitations and reliability requirements.
Rather than replacing classical computers, future quantum systems will likely work alongside them. Hybrid approaches that combine quantum and classical computing are expected to play an important role in solving industry challenges.
One of the team’s primary focuses is optimizing how fuel is loaded and arranged inside nuclear reactors –– a complex issue that requires balancing physics, safety, operational objectives and cost. Through the Q-FLO (Quantum Fuel Loading Optimization) project, researchers are exploring hybrid approaches that could combine quantum and classical computing to help utilities run more efficiently , reduce costs, enhance reliability and get more energy from each fuel cycle. EPRI plays a key role in ensuring these innovations align with the industry’s strict safety and regulatory standards, while also helping establish benchmarks, testing protocols and workforce training that utilities will need to to evaluate and adopt quantum technologies.
Defining Success
For Chong’s team, success is about demonstrating quantum computing’s measurable value in real environments, developing solutions that can integrate into existing workflows, meet rigorous safety and reliability requirements and, ultimately, help solve practical industry challenges.
Most importantly, success means creating a pathway from research to deployment.
“By bringing together leaders in quantum computing and energy, the NQAC Grand Challenge is helping ensure that advances in quantum algorithms are guided by real-world needs and positioned to deliver meaningful impact for the industries that power our future,” Chong said.
