Oak Ridge National Lab, Cleveland Clinic, and IBM Achieve First-Known Computations of Fusion Materials on a Quantum Computer

YORKTOWN HEIGHTS, N.Y. (July 6, 2026) - Scientists from Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Cleveland Clinic and IBM have calculated nine molecular configurations of a material used to produce fuel for fusion energy, the first-known instance of such computations performed on quantum computers. The work focused on FLiBe, a liquid salt containing fluorine, lithium and beryllium. Researchers used a quantum-centric workflow to model the chemistry of the molten salt, matching results from the most demanding classical methods. "Quantum computers, such as those built The announcement was issued