# Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Cross 12,000-Atom Barrier in Heterogeneous Quantum-Classical Drug Binding Simulations

Source: [Quantum Computing Report](https://quantumcomputingreport.com/cleveland-clinic-riken-and-ibm-cross-12000-atom-barrier-in-heterogeneous-quantum-classical-drug-binding-simulations/) · 2026-11-13 · Computing
Page: https://themorning.science/story/cleveland-clinic-riken-and-ibm-cross-12-000-atom-barrier-in-heterogeneous-quantu-89ff689925ce0228
Kind: research · Impact: medium

## In brief

- Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN and IBM Quantum report the largest heterogeneous quantum-classical electronic-structure calculation to date.
- The calculation simulated protein-ligand complexes exceeding 12,000 atoms.
- The work used a 156-qubit IBM Heron r2 processor.

## Why it matters

It shows hybrid quantum-classical methods can handle protein-ligand systems of over 12,000 atoms, a scale relevant to modelling how drug candidates bind to their targets.

## Versions

- IBM Heron r2

## Timeline

- 2026-11-13: Collaboration reported 12,000-atom heterogeneous quantum-classical drug binding simulation

## Coverage

- [Cleveland Clinic, RIKEN, and IBM Cross 12,000-Atom Barrier in Heterogeneous Quantum-Classical Drug Binding Simulations](https://quantumcomputingreport.com/cleveland-clinic-riken-and-ibm-cross-12000-atom-barrier-in-heterogeneous-quantum-classical-drug-binding-simulations/) — Quantum Computing Report, 2026-11-13

Tags: quantum-computing, drug-discovery, molecular-simulation, hybrid-computing, protein-ligand-binding

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Brief generated by AI (claude-haiku-5-5) from the reporting listed under Coverage. Headlines belong to their publishers. The Morning Science – https://themorning.science