Rolls-Royce is testing quantum computers on gas turbine simulations that push supercomputers to their limit

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A multi-year bet on quantum helping design jet engines

Quantinuum, Rolls-Royce, quantum error correction specialist Riverlane, and EPCC, the University of Edinburgh's National Supercomputing Centre, have signed a multi-year agreement to explore whether fault tolerant quantum computing can help with complex fluid dynamics simulations used in industrial design, specifically gas turbine design. Quantinuum is providing access to its Helios quantum computer and software environment, Rolls-Royce brings the actual industrial use cases and domain expertise, Riverlane contributes quantum error correction and algorithm design, and EPCC supplies supercomputing and hybrid workflow integration

Why gas turbines specifically need this

Complex fluid dynamics simulations sit at the center of gas turbine design, but they demand enormous computing resources as the models get more detailed, a bottleneck that keeps getting worse rather than better as engineers push for more accurate designs. The partners plan to test key computational building blocks of industrially relevant quantum algorithms directly on Helios, then assess how those building blocks could scale onto Quantinuum's planned future systems, Sol and Apollo

This builds on years of groundwork, not a cold start

Rolls-Royce, Riverlane and EPCC have actually been developing and refining algorithms for hybrid fault tolerant applications for almost five years already, using classical emulators rather than real quantum hardware. Rolls-Royce's Leigh Lapworth framed this new agreement as the natural next phase, moving from emulation to actually testing implementations on real quantum hardware, arguing that application development is inherently a multi-year undertaking and that co-developing the algorithms, hardware and software together now is necessary if the industry wants to actually benefit once fault tolerant machines exist

The bigger target, teraQuOp

The UK's national quantum computing mission is aiming for what it calls teraQuOp systems, machines capable of one trillion error free operations, and this collaboration is explicitly framed as supporting that broader government backed push. Riverlane's Steve Brierley pointed to quantum error correction as the single critical technology that will ultimately unlock large scale fault tolerant quantum computing across industries generally, not just aerospace, while EPCC's Oliver Thomson Brown noted his center has been working toward hybrid HPC and quantum integration since 2023, calling this project a natural fit for the UK's first National Supercomputing Centre

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