Quantum phase estimation is a fundamental subroutine in many quantum
algorithms, including Shor's factorization algorithm and quantum simulation.
However, so far results have cast doubt on its practicability for near-term,
non-fault tolerant, quantum devices. Here we report experimental results
demonstrating that this intuition need not be true. We implement a recently
proposed adaptive Bayesian approach to quantum phase estimation and use it to
simulate molecular energies on a Silicon quantum photonic device. The approach
is verified to be well suited for pre-threshold quantum processors by
investigating its superior robustness to noise and decoherence compared to the
iterative phase estimation algorithm. This shows a promising route to unlock
the power of quantum phase estimation much sooner than previously believed
