Quantum computing used to study chimpanzee conflict

The Jane Goodall Institute and FormationQ have launched a two-year research programme that uses quantum computing to study the ecological drivers of conflict and cooperation in chimpanzees and bonobos.

The project will examine why some primate societies show lethal intergroup violence while others coexist more peacefully. It centres on a model called B3GET, which simulates how virtual primates move, forage, reproduce and interact across artificial landscapes as researchers vary factors such as food distribution, home range size and group cohesion.

Scientists from the Jane Goodall Institute and the University of Minnesota are involved in the research, while IonQ is providing the quantum computing platform. The project combines agent-based modelling with hybrid quantum-classical computing to test whether quantum systems can help calibrate large behavioural models and explore complex ecological interactions more effectively.

Chimpanzees and bonobos are the closest living relatives of humans, but they display sharply different forms of intergroup behaviour. Chimpanzees have been observed engaging in organised lethal conflict between groups, while bonobos are known for more peaceful contact between communities.

The study is designed to test a longstanding idea in behavioural ecology: that these differences are shaped by ecological conditions rather than by a single behavioural trait. Researchers will vary environmental pressures in the model to assess how patterns of cooperation, aggression and social organisation emerge over time.

The work also has a conservation dimension. According to the organisations behind the programme, understanding how behaviour relates to habitat and mortality could help identify which environments are most important to protect and improve population modelling for chimpanzees.

Long record

The initiative draws on more than six decades of field observations associated with Jane Goodall's work in Gombe, Tanzania. That archive has been central to scientific understanding of chimpanzee behaviour and now forms part of the foundation for a computational research effort aimed at translating long-term observation into modelled scenarios.

The programme is among the first attempts to apply quantum computing to ecology, evolution and animal behaviour at this scale. For quantum companies, it also offers an example of applied research beyond more established areas such as chemistry, logistics and finance.

B3GET was developed by Dr Kristin N. Crouse, Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota, who will serve as Co-Investigator and full-time research lead. Dr Michael L. Wilson, Professor of Ecology, Evolution, and Behaviour at the University of Minnesota, is also a Principal Investigator on the programme and brings more than 25 years of experience with the Gombe chimpanzee project.

The University of Minnesota Supercomputing Institute is supporting the research infrastructure. FormationQ's role is to structure and run the applied quantum part of the programme across the participating organisations.

Scientific question

Dr Lilian Pintea, Vice President of Conservation Science at the Jane Goodall Institute, said: "Dr Jane Goodall spent over 65 years building the most comprehensive ongoing record of wild chimpanzees. That legacy of patient, rigorous observation is now meeting the frontier of quantum science. Understanding the ecological conditions that shape how chimpanzees interact with their habitats and neighbours is also relevant to understanding why populations thrive or decline, and where conservation action will matter most.

"This partnership embodies exactly what the Jane Goodall Institute's scientific work stands for: strategically bringing the most powerful technology tools available to bear on the questions that matter most for chimpanzees, for conservation and for our understanding of what it means to be human. This programme is one of the last that Jane and I worked on together. Launching it today, on the 66th anniversary of her first day at Gombe, is deeply meaningful to me."

FormationQ described the effort as an attempt to connect specialist scientific knowledge with a new computing approach, rather than replace existing ecological methods. The project began with an established scientific problem and a mature body of field research.

Nada Hosking, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of FormationQ, said: "This programme starts with a profound scientific question, decades of extraordinary field research and a sophisticated model built to understand a deeply complex natural system. FormationQ's role in this partnership is to bring those elements together with IonQ's frontier quantum computing capabilities and build a research programme around a question that has never before been approached in this way.

"We believe the real promise of quantum will emerge when world-leading domain expertise, data and models are connected to the technology in ways that allow researchers to ask new questions. There could be few more meaningful places to begin than with Jane Goodall's extraordinary scientific legacy and what it can still teach us about nature, conservation and ourselves."