Folding HP Lattice Proteins with Quantum Annealing

Folding a protein sequence into its minimum-energy structure represents a difficult optimization problem. In this project, a novel mapping of the two-dimensional HP [hydrophobic (H) or polar (P) beads] lattice protein model onto a quantum annealer has been developed, which is successfully explored on the D-Wave Advantage Quantum Annealer JUPSI. As benchmarks for success, short HP chains have been used, for which the exact solutions are known from exhaustive enumerations. For larger problems, for which no solution is known, a comparison was made with the best known solutions obtained by classical means. The approach allows to explore the largest chains studied so far on a quantum annealer, and consistently provides high percentages of correct solution on multiple runs. However, the success of this approach relies upon using the hybrid solver provided by D-Wave Systems, which combines classical with quantum computing. The performance of pure quantum annealing is less impressive with a drastic decrease in success rate as the system size is increased.

References: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.043013