2024-01-10 18:57:00
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10.01.2024 21:57, Gennady Detinich
Microsoft specialists original tested the capabilities of their new cloud platform Azure Quantum Elements for scientific work. They challenged her to find the best battery electrolyte material that would outperform a lithium-ion battery. The platform completed the task in two weeks, whereas teams of scientists usually spend years, if not decades, on this.
On the left are experimental batteries, on the right is a stand for testing them and a homemade watch on them. Image source: Harry McCracken
The Azure Quantum Elements platform was introduced by Microsoft last summer. The word “quantum” in the name of the platform should not be misleading. For now these are classic supercomputers. They will become quantum someday later – in five or ten years, or maybe later. Ideally, Azure Quantum Elements will be a hybrid approach – a symbiosis of classical and quantum systems. However, the platform is designed to process scientific data using special algorithms, which makes it useful already at this stage.
By and large, Microsoft did not need new batteries. This is away from the immediate interests of the company. But it was tempting to test the Azure Quantum Elements platform in action – to conduct a baptism of fire. The company has a team of researchers dedicated to quantum computing, and working with materials is routine for them. The team selected 32.6 million substances and compounds for analysis by the platform. Intelligent algorithms first reduced the number of candidates to 500 thousand, then to 500, to 150 and to 18.
At the final stage of the selection, Microsoft turned for help to narrow specialists – scientists from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). They selected the most promising material – a 30/70 mixture of lithium and sodium – and helped make prototypes of batteries in the CR2032 form factor.
The resulting battery with solid electrolyte does not burn, does not explode, has a greater number of recharge cycles and a higher capacity than similar pure lithium-ion batteries. The company does not consider this invention its achievement. She’s proud of the Azure Quantum Elements platform, which compressed years of research, trial and error into just two weeks of work. True, it took another year to finalize the development and manufacture prototypes at PNNL, but this final phase cannot be dispensed with now and is unlikely to be significantly accelerated in the future.
The Azure Quantum Elements platform is currently available to select Microsoft customers in limited testing. It is known that with its help the British Johnson Matthey is developing catalytic converters and hydrogen fuel cells. Digital allowed us to compress tens and hundreds of years of research into weeks and hours of calculations. Science has received a powerful impetus to move forward, and these tools are becoming more advanced year following year.
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