Ohio Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted Speaks with Cleveland Clinic President & CEO Tom Mihaljevic at Quantum Computing @ 2023 Ohio CEO Summit
Health Research
In March, The Quantum Insider covered the news that the Cleveland Clinic and IBM had launched the world’s first quantum computer (IBM Quantum System One) dedicated to healthcare research.
Last month, in Ohio CEO Conference 2023Lieutenant Governor of Ohio Jon Husted have a conversation with Cleveland Clinic President & CEO, Dr. Tom Mihaljevic on quantum computing and on Quantum System One at the Cleveland Clinic.
First, Husted wanted to know how IBM’s Quantum System One would be used to develop new drugs and treatments.
“Our biggest idea for drugs and treatments is obviously going to be designing new drugs that are basically molecules,” says Mihaljevic, “three-dimensional molecules that have different potential structures where we need to have a lot of computing power to design the right drug for the right patient. ”
Mihaljevic continued that the idea for the future of healthcare is that everyone will have treatment that will be tailored to the needs of the patient as well as the type of condition the patient has.
Personalized Care
“A common example is cancer drugs,” said the Cleveland Clinic chief. “Everyone has a different genotype. We know that we are all different. Most cancers that attack us are also different. The combination of host and cancer requires different treatment for almost every cancer subtype. To develop such differential treatments on a large scale, which are personalized and more targeted requires computational power. And it’s really one of the great examples of how quantum computing can be used to solve problems in healthcare.”
Husted, who served as Ohio’s 66th lieutenant governor since 2019 and was previously the 53rd Ohio Secretary of State, acknowledged that he was not a physicist or computer scientist, but wanted Mihaljevic to help the audience (and himself) understand where the quantum would be. become once mastered.
“We certainly hope that we will see some breakthroughs literally in the next ten years in healthcare,” said Mihaljevic, adding that they could be several million times faster than conventional hypercomputers, which only large corporate entities (and a few players who smaller too) have at the moment. “We are not talking about the computer we have in our pocket on the desktop. The use of hybrid computers or quantum computers is currently in several industries, and it won’t be a surprise to anyone — especially in finance to provide the ability to very quickly calculate changes in the market.
Mihaljevic says companies like Goldman Sachs are “renting time” on quantum computers to do some of their financial modeling. Another, he said, is the defense industry for all defense applications related to national security, because many of the world’s quantum computers are in the hands of the government. Lastly, he mentions manufacturing and particularly in new materials.
“Just as we talk about creating new drugs, you can apply the same thing to different alloys, to different biochemical compounds, where people want to synthesize them more quickly, and for that, they need the same kind of computation. capabilities like the ones we just talked about,” said Mihaljevic.
Husted then refers to how many politicians don’t know what quantum computing is.
Complete Ignorance
“One day I was in a room full of about seventy government officials and I asked them how many of you knew about quantum computing and no one even pretended that they did — like they don’t knowsays Husted, despite realizing to himself that quantum is a technology capable of solving complex problems, and that — in the wrong hands — is also dangerous, with the possibility that it could happen.“making cryptology extinct”.
Country Support
The subject of Ohio is next on Husted’s agenda with partnerships, innovation, and research across the state, asking Mihaljevic what the government needs to do to make sure he’s a good partner, realizing talent production is important.
“Despite the fact that you and I have just talked about technology, it is a matter of talent,” said Mihaljevic. “Just having a quantum computer is not the same as having a desktop or laptop where you can take a manual and you know how to use it. It is experimental and is still a very advanced computing technology. To get the most out of that technology, you have to have an army of data scientists, PhDs in computing science, and engineers that we have to bring in here so that we can really take full advantage of the infrastructure that we’ve brought to the state of Ohio.”
Limiting Obstacles
Mihaljevic added that to help the situation, the state government could make it easier for talented people to come to Ohio.
“We have a lot of educational programs for quantum computing and computing in general. Developing is part of this, and this is what IBM really brings, but also for a highly technical, you know, highly sophisticated workforce, we have to have the ability to bring them into our country from the outside. They do bring benefits. So, limiting talent attraction barriers is what we really need,” said Mihaljevic.
Featured image: Ohio CEO Conference
