Nicolas Sawaya
nicolassawaya.bsky.social
Nicolas Sawaya
@nicolassawaya.bsky.social
Azulene Labs. Computational physics / chemistry / materials. Climate hawk.
At the same time, a top-quality datasets are essential to make physics-AI models truly predictive. That’s why so much of our focus is on creating and curating diverse datasets across chemistry, materials, and biochemistry.
August 28, 2025 at 12:16 AM
I discussed why physics-based AI models remain indispensable in chemistry and materials discovery—purely data-driven AI will never match the reliability of physics-AI.
August 28, 2025 at 12:16 AM
Models like Boltz-2 don’t replace expensive physics-based calculations—they allow you to do fewer of them. The practical workflows will be to use Boltz-2 (or similar) for an initial screening, and proper FEP for a "second pass" step.

#ComputationalChemistry
#DrugDiscovery
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#Boltz2
June 17, 2025 at 5:42 AM
One note: in these benchmarks, FEP+ uses (I think) an OPLS-based force field, which itself can/will be improved upon with more modern force fields. So as force fields improve, the gap between Boltz-type models and physics-based methods will likely get even larger.
June 17, 2025 at 5:42 AM
On their test set, Boltz-2 showed a Pearson R of 0.63, compared to 0.72 for FEP—extremely impressive but still a large gap. The speed of Boltz-2 comes at the cost of accuracy, and if the baseline FEP model isn’t accurate enough to begin with, that tradeoff isn’t always justified.
June 17, 2025 at 5:42 AM
But it’s important to recognize, as the authors themselves make clear, that Boltz-2’s accuracy is still far behind expensive physics-based FEP (Free Energy Perturbation) methods.
June 17, 2025 at 5:42 AM
Bottom line: VQE is here to stay, and will be at the heart of tomorrow’s most important quantum algorithms. 🚀

Read full post here: www.nicolassawaya.com/post/vqe-isn...

#QuantumComputing #QuantumAlgorithms #DeepTech
VQE Isn't Just for Near-Term Quantum Computing
There's a persistent misconception circulating in quantum computing circles that I keep encountering—both from industry professionals and in academic peer review. The claim goes something like this: "...
www.nicolassawaya.com
June 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM
All the work being done today on variational algorithms, optimization, and ansatz design is laying the foundation for the algorithms we’ll run on error-corrected quantum computers. In fact, removing noise constraints will make these methods even more powerful and precise.
June 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM
The reality: VQE will be an *indispensable* *subroutine* in future quantum algorithms. Whether you’re doing QPE, Krylov subspace methods, or imaginary time evolution, you need a good starting state. VQE delivers that, making it a key first subroutine—not just a noisy hardware workaround.
June 6, 2025 at 8:40 PM