BasQ is strengthening its international presence through strategic partnerships with the Cleveland Clinic and RIKEN

Basque Quantum continues to make significant strides. Two Joint Global Agreements (JGA)—strategic collaboration agreements with international partners on high-impact projects—have just been signed as part of the Basque Quantum strategy. These initiatives aim to position BasQ and the Basque Country at the forefront of quantum computing, in this case with the collaboration of leading institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic (United States) and RIKEN (Japan).
Specifically, the formalized agreements establish a collaboration framework between the Biobizkaia Health Research Institute and the Cleveland Clinic, and between the Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC) and RIKEN.

Agreement between IIS Biobizkaia and Cleveland Clinic
The collaboration project between Biobizkaia and Cleveland Clinic, titled Quantum-Enhanced Drug Target Discovery for Alzheimer’s Disease (ADQ), will use quantum computing and quantum algorithms to revolutionize the prediction of therapeutic targets and thus accelerate the discovery of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease remains a global challenge, as its great complexity hinders the development of effective drugs. Current models fail to fully replicate the biological networks involved, and traditional computational methods are insufficient to analyze the large volumes of data and their complex interactions.

The collaboration between Biobizkaia and the Cleveland Clinic aims to demonstrate that a drug-design approach based on quantum technologies can significantly accelerate the discovery of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and has the potential to improve the lives of millions of people affected by this disease.

Cleveland Clinic, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is an internationally renowned non-profit academic medical center. It combines clinical care, research, and education, and is at the forefront of developing new technologies and methodologies, particularly in areas such as applied quantum computing and the life sciences.

Agreement between DIPC and RIKEN
The collaborative project between DIPC and RIKEN, titled “Beyond Jastrow: quantum ansatz design for hybrid QSCI algorithms” (BEYOND-J), aims to tackle complex problems in chemistry by combining state-of-the-art supercomputing with the new quantum infrastructure recently installed in Donostia, the IBM-Basque Country System Two.
The project focuses on developing hybrid algorithms capable of efficiently combining quantum computers and classical supercomputers to simulate chemical systems with high precision. This approach allows for the intelligent distribution of the most complex calculations between both technologies, leveraging the strengths of each.

Thanks to this methodology, BEYOND-J aims to characterize chemical compounds at a level of detail that is difficult to achieve with current tools, which could have a significant impact on areas such as the design of new materials or drug development.

The project will be carried out by integrating state-of-the-art infrastructure, including the IBM-Basque Country System Two, the DIPC computing center, and international resources such as IBM systems in Japan and RIKEN’s Fugaku supercomputer.

RIKEN is Japan’s largest research organization and has institutes and centers located throughout the country. RIKEN’s more than 3,000 researchers publish several hundred research articles each year in leading scientific and technical journals, and it is currently the international benchmark for the integration of large-scale classical and quantum computing resources.