It seems clear that quantum computing would help with QM calculations (which I think you were mainly talking about), but it is less clear to me if it would help with things like MD (and perhaps it wouldn't matter if QM could be sped up enough).
Could quantum computing help with MD or other kinds of simulations (e.g. monte carlo) where we are essentially searching for a minima? I have heard that quantum annealing, which some argue the first QC system are really doing, would work on this. But it's all too confusing. It seems like half of what I read about quantum computing would say "Yes!" to that, and half is saying "you don't understand".
It could help with MD. A lot of MD potentials are developed by kind of regressing results from QM calculations for different atomic configurations (e.g. some versions of ReaxFF are based off of DFT calculations).
I actually don't know a whole lot about how exactly QC speeds up computations for things like Quantum Monte Carlo, I just know that an algorithm exists for it (much like Shor's algorithm speeds up integer factorization, but the details are murky for me). I'll have to see if I can find which paper that is.
Could quantum computing help with MD or other kinds of simulations (e.g. monte carlo) where we are essentially searching for a minima? I have heard that quantum annealing, which some argue the first QC system are really doing, would work on this. But it's all too confusing. It seems like half of what I read about quantum computing would say "Yes!" to that, and half is saying "you don't understand".