Is current NISQ hardware practically useful for catalytic chemistry simulations?

[Evelyn.J]

I'm a computational chemist researching novel catalysts, and while I've followed the theoretical promise of quantum computing for molecular simulation for years, I'm now trying to assess if current NISQ-era hardware is practically usable for my specific research problems. I've explored cloud access to some quantum processors, but the noise levels and qubit connectivity constraints make it unclear if any real advantage over classical supercomputers exists yet for my type of calculations. For researchers in applied sciences who are actively experimenting with quantum computing, what are the most promising near-term use cases you've identified? How do you decide which quantum algorithms or hybrid approaches are mature enough to invest significant time in, and what are the biggest practical hurdles beyond just qubit count, like error mitigation or algorithm compilation, that currently limit real-world application?