Optimizing materials discovery, powered by Orquestra^®

The Challenge

As the largest chemical producer in the world, BASF is constantly developing new materials for consumer goods, transportation, healthcare, agriculture, energy and beyond.

In their pursuit of sustainable and innovative new materials, BASF is looking to explore how quantum computing can be leveraged in the near-term to boost classical solutions for cheminformatics — particularly machine learning models that can predict the molecular properties of new materials.

Our Approach

Today, BASF is collaborating with Zapata to benchmark the performance of novel quantum solutions against state-of-the-art classical approaches using Orquestra. Specifically, we are exploring machine learning approaches for predicting molecular properties, with feature selection and classification as a sub-routine of a supervised learning algorithm.

In addition to boosting materials discovery, BASF is also exploring how quantum-inspired methods can optimize their operations across the value chain, from raw material sourcing to the location of production facilities and beyond.

We’re moving with intent to solve real business problems with the technologies available today and the technologies we expect in the future.

Brian Standen, BASF
Global Head of Digital Innovation