Simulations of polymers? A quantum puzzle

Using computers to study polymers has always been a major challenge for scientific computation, especially for long and densely packed biomolecules, like DNA. New perspectives are now opening up through quantum computing. Scientists have now recast the basic models of polymer models as optimization problems that can be efficiently solved with quantum computers. This novel approach has made it possible to harness the considerable potential of these machines in a hitherto unexplored context.