Project Lead: Aegiq
Sector: Science and Engineering
Project Summary
The QuIP’D (Quantum-Inspired Plasma Dynamics) project addresses the challenge of simulating plasma physics for applications such as inertial confinement fusion, defence, and high-energy-density systems. These simulations require coupling fluid dynamics, electromagnetics, plasma physics, and material behaviour across extreme spatial and temporal scales, making them difficult to run efficiently even on the world’s largest supercomputers.
The project will develop quantum-ready magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) algorithms using tensor-network methods that can be executed on classical hardware while remaining compatible with future quantum implementations. Rather than running on current quantum processors, the team will emulate future quantum systems, estimate required quantum resources, and investigate pathways to implementation on fault-tolerant quantum computers. The work is based on defined use cases from First Light Fusion and AWE.
Expected outcomes include validated quantum-ready plasma simulation methods, benchmarking on fusion and defence-relevant problems, identification of hardware bottlenecks and quantum resource requirements, and a roadmap toward practical quantum-enabled plasma simulation with potential future quantum advantage.
