The Quantum Integrated Chemistry (QUICHE) project is a bilateral partnership between the UK and Germany, funded by Innovate UK and the German ZIM programme. The consortium brings together Quantum Motion (silicon-spin hardware and algorithm development), FACCTs (developers of the ORCA quantum chemistry software), and Riverlane (quantum error correction). The primary objective is to establish a practical, end-to-end workflow that allows researchers to execute quantum-ready calculations directly within the ORCA platform, which is currently used by over 100,000 scientists for molecular and materials simulation.
Technically, QUICHE focuses on the automated translation of high-level chemical systems into optimized quantum circuits. The project specifically targets electronic structure calculations for materials used in solar cells and batteries. By utilizing advanced decomposition and compilation techniques, the team aims to minimize circuit depth and optimize gate sequences for compatibility with early fault-tolerant hardware. The ORCA frontend is being extended to automatically pass chemical data into this quantum pipeline, enabling chemists to utilize quantum-informed methods without requiring deep expertise in quantum algorithm design or hardware-specific programming.
The project will deploy two specialized backends to facilitate the transition from classical to quantum computing. The first utilizes the QuEST ecosystem, supported by Quantum Motion, to provide high-performance classical simulation for algorithm testing and benchmarking. The second is a dedicated resource estimation backend that calculates the precise qubit counts and runtimes required to solve classically intractable industrial problems. These backends are intended to provide organizations with technical data to inform their long-term investment strategies and determine the feasibility of various quantum chemistry applications on upcoming hardware generations.
Read the official announcement from Quantum Motion here.
February 5, 2026
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