How Quantum Computing Will Be Applied to Agriculture Within the Coming Years

While working with Dr. Nguyen from boltz.ai, one of the first groups in the world using quantum computing to help increase the crop yields of farmers, I got to know a roadmap of how Dr. Nguyen and his team plan on applying quantum computing to agriculture in the coming years.

Within the next 5 years, Dr. Nguyen and boltz.ai will use quantum annealers to solve problems that will improve:

1. Wild fisheries management, productivity and environmental performance of aquaculture
2. Reforest agricultural lands with little intensification potential
3. Link productivity gains with protection of natural ecosystems
4. Plant existing cropland more frequently, improve soil and water management
5. Increase livestock and pasture productivity, reduce food loss and waste
6. Conserve and restore peatlands
7. Limit inevitable cropland expansion to lands with low environmental opportunity costs

Within the next 5–10 years, Dr. Nguyen and Boltz ai plan to use chemical solvers, around 10,000 qubits large, to solve problems that would:

1. Reduce enteric fermentation through new technologies
2. Reduce emissions through improved manure management
3. Reduce emissions from manure left on pasture, reduce emissions from fertilizers by increasing nitrogen use efficiency
4. Adopt emissions-reducing rice management and varieties
5. Increase agricultural energy efficiency and shift to non-fossil energy sources
6. Implement realistic options to sequester carbon in soils.

And finally, beyond 10 years, when full scale quantum computers are fully available, boltz.ai plans to use these full scale quantum computers that are around 1,000,000 qubits large to:

1. Adapt to climate change
2. Improve crop breeding
3. Achieve replacement-level fertility rates
4. Avoid competition from bioenergy for food crops and land
5. Shift to healthier, more sustainable diets.

Thanks to this roadmap from boltz.ai, we now have an idea of how exactly quantum computing will be able to be applied to agriculture within the coming years. Hopefully with this knowledge, others will be more encouraged to get into quantum computing and its applications to agriculture now that there is a designed path for its application!