When Abhishek Chopra was in undergraduate school, a problem thrown at him was to design the tip of an aircraft wing, for which he had to understand the movement of air under the wing. Solving the problem called for humongous computing power — it took six months on a supercomputer.
Were there so many variables whose interactions had to be checked? “Not variables, but degrees of freedom,” says Chopra.
In September 2020, Chopra and his friends Rut Lineswala (a fellow expert in high-computing simulation) and Jash Minocha, a blockchain expert, founded BosonQ Psi (BQP) to solve engineering problems using quantum computing.
Their offering to industry is simple: if you are designing a product and need simulations, then BQP’s software will do it faster, cheaper and more accurately.
The software-as-a-service enterprise uses quantum computing to speed up virtual simulations “in multi-physics and computer-aided engineering (CAE)”.
Chopra explains with an example. Suppose you have an app that runs on Android and you want to move it to an iPhone. You just can’t copy- paste; it will have to be redesigned from scratch. You do simulations on a conventional computer using algorithms. BQP’s software helps you take them to a quantum computer, which is orders of magnitude faster.
BQP’s product, called BQPhy, is a quantum-powered cloud simulation software designed for enterprise customers from the manufacturing sector, notably automotive and aerospace.
Equipped with high-accuracy CAE “solvers”, the product finds use in advanced materials and structures security, thermal analysis, and design optimisation. Its solutions are offered across industries — automotive, aerospace, energy, construction, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and electronics, says the company’s CTO, Lineswala.
BQP raised $500,000 in pre-seed funding in July 2022. The startup finished as one of the top finalists of the BMW Quantum Challenge last year.