IonQ and Synopsys Report Up to 14.6% Faster Engineering Simulations

Insider Brief

• IonQ and Synopsys reported quantum-enhanced simulation workflows that reduced runtime by up to 14.6% across several industrial engineering models.
• The research integrated a quantum algorithm into Synopsys’ Ansys LS-DYNA software and tested models with meshes of up to 35 million data points using simulations of up to 150 qubits.
• The work was physically validated on IonQ’s 36-qubit Forte system and received the 1st Place Best Paper Award at IEEE Quantum Week 2026.

PRESS RELEASE — IonQ (NYSE: IONQ), the world’s leading full-stack quantum platform and foundry, today detailed research conducted with Synopsys. The publication shows early results that quantum algorithms integrated into mainstream engineering software can accelerate complex industrial design by up to 14.6%. The research illustrates hybrid quantum computing can address major computational bottlenecks for classical supercomputers. It also earned a 1st Place Best Paper Award at IEEE Quantum Week 2026 in Toronto.

Companies designing products—from vehicles to sensors to nuclear reactors—rely on simulation to predict product performance against true-to-reality physics. Larger scale simulations, such as those used for virtual crash tests and aerodynamic analysis, can require significant compute resources. Those resources are necessary to solve large systems of equations containing hundreds of millions of variables. Depending on the simulation setup, standard computers may generate extra calculations that consume memory and extend processing times.

To solve this, simulation software attempts to efficiently reorganize the equations before solving them. In this research, IonQ and Synopsys plugged an advanced quantum algorithm directly into Synopsys’s industry-standard Ansys LS-DYNA simulation software. Instead of relying on traditional, time-consuming trial-and-error to find the best setup, the quantum system acted like a highly efficient traffic cop. It rapidly identified the best way to organize the data to avoid those unnecessary calculations entirely.

“Engineering simulations for jet engines or automotive crash tests require extremely large classical compute clusters running for days at a time. By embedding an advanced quantum algorithm into the core workflow, we reduced total simulation times by up to 14.6 percent,” said Dr. Martin Roetteler, IonQ’s Vice President of Quantum Solutions and Technical Fellow and co-author of the paper. “Because this complex organizing step only needs to happen once at the start of a simulation, the time saved pays off repeatedly. That means faster solutions, reduced compute costs, and lower energy consumption for industrial users.”

This new research builds on the team’s prior research. This time, the team tested hybrid workflow across complex digital models of an automobile, an industrial drill component, a fluid impeller, and a jet engine assembly. This study featured meshes made up of up to 35 million individual data points. The numerical simulations were conducted on up to 150 qubits, and physical execution was validated on IonQ‘s 36-qubit Forte trapped-ion quantum computer.

Across all industrial models tested, the quantum-enhanced sorting method yielded consistent runtime improvements of at least 5.9%, peaking at a 14.6% reduction in total time for complex dynamic simulations. That means a massive digital stress test that typically takes seven continuous days to run on a classical supercomputer, saves approximately one full day of non-stop computing.

“Together with IonQ, we are advancing the development of quantum computers and hybrid simulation workloads to unlock new possibilities for engineering design and optimization,” said Prith Banerjee, Senior Vice President of Innovation at Synopsys. “Quantum computers have the potential to drastically accelerate large simulation workloads while improving predictive accuracy. By focusing on achievable breakthroughs in the NISQ era, we can unlock some of that potential in the near-term for our customers while preparing for the full promise of fault-tolerant quantum computing.”

The research paper, titled “End-to-end Performance of Quantum-Accelerated Large-Scale Linear Algebra Workflows,” is one of nine IonQ research papers accepted at IEEE Quantum Week 2026, held Sept. 13–18 in Toronto, Canada.