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Engineers use the newest technology to combat an old problem

Boeing applies quantum computing to combat aircraft corrosion, improve durability

April 09, 2026 in Innovation

Fighting aircraft corrosion costs the industry $2.5 trillion a year globally.

Boeing has been awarded $2.5 million to help fight the problem using quantum computing.

Why it matters: Faster, more accurate corrosion modeling could improve material durability across aerospace, helping to mitigate material degradation, reducing safety risks and lowering lifecycle costs. 

  • Quantum computing aims to deliver the power to do that modeling.

Zoom in: Boeing’s QUantum Innovation for Corrosion Kinetics (QUICK) project received the award to optimize the full quantum computational stack — from applications to algorithms — and build a hybrid quantum‑classical workflow for corrosion use cases. 

  • The award comes as Boeing was selected for the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) Quantum Computing for Computational Chemistry (QC3) program to apply quantum algorithms to chemistry and materials problems that classical computers cannot yet solve. ARPA-E is a specialized agency within the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Driving the news: QC3 is allocating $37 million to 10 Quantum computing projects that focus on quantum solutions for chemistry and materials problems that go beyond the capabilities of classical computing. 

  • Boeing is the only company in the aerospace industry to be funded for a project under QC3. 
  • “We are excited to be part of QC3 and continue leading with anchored demonstrations to prove today’s capability and chart the path to scale for real-world impact,” said Jay Lowell, chief scientist for Boeing Disruptive Computing, Networks & Sensors.

How they did it: QUICK focuses on demonstrating how next-generation quantum machines outperform standard computers and running solutions on actual quantum computer hardware.

The big picture: QC3 projects are expected to achieve a 100x performance improvement versus the classical state of the art, and show clear paths to transformative impact in their targeted energy applications. 

  • For Boeing, such gains could speed up discovery of corrosion-resistant materials and shorten development cycles for components used across industries.

What’s next: QUICK will proceed to implement and test its quantum algorithms on hardware as required by QC3 and use quantum computing to make corrosion modeling markedly faster and more accurate, with potential safety and cost benefits across multiple industries.