With advances in algorithms and growing computing powers, quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods have become a leading contender for high accuracy calculations for the electronic structure of realistic systems.

In this talk, I present recent development in QMC theories and numerical algorithms which have allowed us to reach the accuracy and system sizes at unprecedented time-to-solution. I discuss QMC implementations to overcome the important efficiency and scalability bottlenecks encountered with the HPC systems based on the multi/many-core architecture of today and present state-of-art QMC calculations of solid-state and molecular systems using tens or hundred thousand cores on the petascale computers.

Finally, I examine the readiness of QMC for the future HPC architectures to harness ever-increasing computing powers to tackle outstanding materials and chemical problems.