Six Japanese companies will build a quantum platform for materials development that combines quantum computing with artificial intelligence (AI). Announced on October 28, 2026, the project brings together SoftBank, TOPPAN Holdings, AISIN, Asahi Kasei, AGC and DIC, after their joint proposal was selected by NEDO, Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization.
What the quantum platform is
The project, titled “Research and Development of Innovative Materials Development Platforms Using Quantum Technology”, was chosen under NEDO's R&D programme for enhanced infrastructures for post-5G information and communication systems. The companies signed a joint research and development agreement running from fiscal 2026, ending March 31, 2027, through fiscal 2028. The goal is a next-generation platform that bridges the gap between demonstration and real-world industrial application.
Why combine quantum computing and AI
According to the announcement, discovering new materials today faces two limits: data-driven methods need sufficient, high-quality, high-precision training data, while physics-based simulations become increasingly expensive as they gain accuracy and scale. Quantum computers have the potential to simulate the properties of molecules and electrons more efficiently, but current qubit counts and error rates still prevent large-scale calculations using quantum computers alone. The project therefore uses a hybrid method, combining quantum-computing calculations with AI such as machine learning to mitigate those constraints.
The project's three strands
The first strand verifies where quantum computing can be applied to high-demand industrial materials, including materials for next-generation batteries, optical functional materials for new displays and sensors, and superconducting materials for next-generation devices. The second develops technologies that integrate quantum-computing calculations with AI to expand computational methods and address scale and cost limits. The third runs simulation demonstrations with experimental feedback: materials are synthesized and evaluated from simulation results, and experimental data are compared with simulated data to improve prediction accuracy.
Each company's role
Each company covers verification in its own domain: TOPPAN works on hybrid quantum-classical methods for additive materials; AISIN on superconducting materials; Asahi Kasei on organic compounds such as electrolytes, polymers and inorganic materials such as electrodes; SoftBank on a platform connecting quantum computers with supercomputers to generate data and AI-based data-utilization technologies, including demonstrations linked to next-generation batteries; AGC on optical glass and electronic materials; and DIC on colorants and semiconductor materials, predicting properties before synthesis. The project also plans collaboration with specialized quantum computing institutions.
What the announcement is not yet matters too: it is not a finished commercial product, but a research programme with a defined timetable. The expected outcome is a continuously evolving platform, built from quantum, AI and experimental data, to accelerate materials creation across several industrial sectors.
Image credit: SoftBank — official image from the announcement about the quantum materials platform.
Fontes: SoftBank — Six Companies Launch Joint R&D to Build a Quantum-Computing-Based Materials Development Platform; Light Reading — SoftBank joins project to build quantum-based platform.
Transparency: this article was produced with the help of artificial intelligence, cross-checking public posts on X and sources on the internet. We recommend consulting the original sources for more details.
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