Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN and IBM Team Advance to Finals for 2026 ACM Gordon Bell Prize
A joint IBM, RIKEN and Cleveland Clinic team advances quantum-centric supercomputing for large protein simulations tied to future drug discovery research.
Rhea-AI Summary
IBM (IBM), Cleveland Clinic and RIKEN have been named finalists for the 2026 ACM Gordon Bell Prize for simulating a biologically meaningful protein system of 12,635 atoms using quantum computers and supercomputers.
The team combined IBM Quantum Heron processors at Cleveland Clinic and RIKEN with the Fugaku, Miyabi-G and ROQUO supercomputers in a quantum-centric supercomputing workflow. Earlier work achieved a 303-atom protein simulation; the method was later scaled about 40 times while improving accuracy by 210 times, enhancing binding energy calculations relevant to drug discovery.
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News Explained
IBM’s research team remains a finalist, with the prize outcome pending the November 15–20, 2026 SC26 announcement.
IBM, Cleveland Clinic, and RIKEN have reached finalist status for the 2026 ACM Gordon Bell Prize, so the disclosed outcome is still pending rather than a completed award; the immediate consequence is a recognized research milestone, not a reported change to IBM’s ownership or financing.
The updated work reports further accuracy improvements in molecular binding-energy calculations and validation of the workflow on RIKEN’s ROQUO supercomputer, where CPUs, GPUs, and quantum processors were coordinated with fewer manual transfers and reduced errors.
The prize result is scheduled for announcement at SC26 on
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Joint research team modeled a 12,635-atom protein, the largest-known to be simulated using quantum computers.
Breakthrough was achieved through quantum and classical methods working together, expanding quantum-centric supercomputing's potential in life sciences research.
The ACM Gordon Bell Prize recognizes outstanding achievement in high-performance computing and is one of the field's most prestigious honors. The 2026 winner will be announced at the International Conference for High-Performance Computing, Networking, Storage, and Analysis (SC26), taking place Nov. 15–20, 2026 in
The origins of the project are rooted in the team's investigation into how computation in drug discovery can be improved. Doing so rests on two fundamental challenges: first, modeling the movement of atoms as biological processes unfold; and second, accurately computing their energies. Particularly the second challenge is well-suited for quantum computers, which operate by the laws of quantum mechanics.
In the work, initially published in May 2026, the team calculated the electronic structure of two large protein complexes using the IBM Quantum Heron processors running within the IBM quantum computers at Cleveland Clinic in
The results reflect the team's innovative approach alongside the rapid maturation of quantum computing. Using the sample-based quantum diagonalization by IBM and RIKEN (featured on the cover of Science Advances) along with embedded wavefunction methods adapted by Cleveland Clinic to the question at hand, the team was able to report the first-known simulation of a 303-atom protein achieved with quantum computers. Less than a year later, the team first scaled their method roughly 40 times while also achieving 210 times improvement in accuracy. In updated results recently published in September, the team advanced the work even further. Most notably, they were able to further improve the accuracy of their computations of the binding energies of the molecular system, which reflect how tightly the molecules are bound together and can predict how they could interact with other systems.
In addition, the team validated the workflow on a third supercomputer, JHPC-quantum GPU supercomputer "ROQUO," RIKEN's newest system in a way that eliminated the need for complex manual operations and data transfers – pointing toward faster, more accessible research. By orchestrating CPUs, GPUs, and QPUs together, the team minimized the need for manual transfers and further reduced errors — an early demonstration of how classical and quantum computing can work in concert on complex scientific problems.
Taken together with the earlier results, these updates reflect continued progress on both the accuracy of computed binding energies and the time-to-solution enabled by the automated workflow.
The quantum-classical techniques developed by the team continues to reduce the computational overhead required to directly represent the chemistry of molecular systems with accuracy and is pushing the frontiers of what is possible with quantum-centric supercomputing in the field. The work has demonstrated a path to further increase the accuracy of how molecular system can be calculated and is a step towards helping researchers better predict how medicines may interact with protein targets.
The research team includes Kenneth Merz Jr, Akhil Shajan, Danil Kaliakin, Fangchun Liang of Cleveland Clinic, Yuichi Otsuka, Tomonori Shirakawa, Lukas Broers, Han Xu, Miwako Tsuji, Mitsuhisa Sato, Seiji Yunoki of RIKEN Center for Computational Science, and Ryo Wakizaka, Yukio Kawashima, Jun Doi, Hitomi Takahashi, Toshinari Itoko, Hiroshi Horii, Thaddeus Pellegrini, Javier Robledo Moreno, Kevin J. Sung, Ella Fejer, Robert Walkup, Seetharami Seelam, Mario Motta of IBM.
To read the full study, visit: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.01138
Research Support
This research is supported by NEDO (New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization), an organization under the jurisdiction of
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
About RIKEN
RIKEN is
For more information, visit https://www.riken.jp/en/.
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.
Media contacts
Alicia Reale-Cooney
Cleveland Clinic
realeca@ccf.org
216.408.7444
R-CCS, Computational Science Promotion Division Outreach Group
r-ccs-koho@ml.riken.jp
Danielle Cerasani Estevez
IBM Research Communications
dcerasani@ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM