Anian Virtual Lab

英国政府最近确定了几个重要的行业进行重大投资和创新。这些产业对英国未来的经济、社会和环境繁荣至关重要。政府还制定了雄心勃勃的环境目标，包括到2050年实现净零排放，以结束英国对全球变暖的贡献。其中一个行业就是电池技术。法拉第电池挑战赛已拨款2.46亿英镑，用于电池材料识别、增强和回收等领域的研究。英国政府还拨款1.53亿英镑用于量子技术，包括增强具有量子计算能力的传统计算机。这是一种完全不同的计算方法，利用量子系统的特性来大幅提高计算速度和准确性。然而，就像许多行业一样，电池和量子技术因新冠肺炎疫情而受到干扰。这阻碍了研究进展，并使电池行业更难通过采用量子计算等颠覆性技术来应对未来的挑战。我们的项目使用量子计算来解决开发电池材料的研究人员长期面临的瓶颈。他们发现准确有效地识别和筛选新的电池材料具有挑战性。目前的方法非常不可靠，而且涉及“试错”方法。在实验室里验证新的电池材料需要几年的时间。对于材料开发公司来说，这是非常昂贵和耗时的。全球每年在材料筛选、选择和性能测试方面的支出超过400亿英镑（波士顿咨询集团2019年）。我们将创造、开发和商业化量子增强电池材料筛选产品。它将建立在一个“虚拟实验室”环境中，因此研究人员在大流行期间不需要亲自在实验室中进行研究。我们将把我们的产品完全整合到两家清洁能源材料公司——庄信万丰和默克——的现有流程中，以检查它是否有效。因此，我们将创造一种无与伦比的“量子就绪”产品，“Anian VL”，旨在支持客户需求，并在这个充满挑战的时代提供商业优势。更广泛地说，我们的目标是创造一种改变游戏规则的产品，并将其提供给主要电池材料公司，使他们的研究更容易、更快。这将带来与更清洁、更可持续的技术相一致的社会和经济效益。

The UK government has recently identified several important industries for significant investment and innovation. These industries are vital for the UK's future economic, social, and environmental prosperity. The government has also set ambitious environmental targets, including the achievement of net-zero emissions by 2050 to end the UK's contribution to global warming. One of these industries is battery technology. £246m has been allocated to the Faraday Battery Challenge, addressing research in areas such as battery materials identification, enhancement, and recycling. £153m has also been allocated to quantum technologies, including the enhancement of conventional computers with quantum computing capabilities. This is a fundamentally different approach to computing, using the properties of quantum systems to provide massive improvements in computational speed and accuracy. However, as for many industries, battery and quantum technologies have suffered disruption due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has stalled research progress and made it harder to future-proof the batteries industry through engagement with disruptive technology like quantum computing. Our project uses quantum computing to address a long-standing bottleneck faced by researchers who develop battery materials. They find it challenging to accurately and efficiently identify and screen new battery materials. Current methods are very unreliable and involve a 'trial and error' approach. It takes several years to verify new battery materials in the lab. This is highly costly and time-consuming for a materials development company. Global annual spend on materials screening, selection, and performance testing exceeds £40bn (Boston Consulting Group 2019). We will create, develop and commercialise a quantum-enhanced battery materials screening product. It will be set up in a 'virtual lab' environment, so that researchers do not need to be physically present in a lab to conduct their research during the pandemic. We will fully integrate our product into the existing processes of two clean energy materials companies - Johnson Matthey and Merck -- to check that it works. We will therefore create an unrivalled "quantum-ready" product, "Anian VL", developed to support customer needs and providing commercial advantage in these challenging times. More broadly, our ambition is to create a game-changing product and make it available to major battery materials companies to make their research easier and quicker. This will lead to societal and economic benefits aligned to cleaner, more sustainable technology.