Minimizing Carbon Emissions in Container Shipping Using Quantum-Inspired Approaches

International trade heavily relies on shipping, yet container mobility and its varying demand create imbalances in container stocks, this results in frequent scheduling of empty containers by shipping companies, leading to unnecessary voyages that adversely impact marine ecosystems and exacerbate global warming. This study applies quantum and digital annealing to optimize empty container scheduling, aiming to minimize the carbon emissions resulting from the scheduling of empty containers to mitigate damage to marine ecosystems and the effects of global warming. Comparing to Simulated Annealing, Compal Quantix, and D-Wave Hybrid, Fujitsu DA3 stands out for its superior performance in both calculating the optimal solution and reducing computation time.