Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:1703.05342

The Tyranny of Qubits - Quantum Technology's Scalability Bottleneck

John Edward Gough

Published Mar 15, 2017• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this essay, I look at (bemoan) the issues surrounding simulating quantum systems in order to design quantum devices for quantum technologies. The program runs into a natural difficulty that simulating quantum systems really require a proper quantum simulator. The problem is likened to the "tyranny of numbers" that faced computer engineers in the 1960s.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1703.05342

Related papers

XQsim

Ilkwon Byun, Junpyo Kim, Dongmoon Min +7 more

10+K qubit quantum computer is essential to achieve a true sense of quantum supremacy. With the recent effort towards the large-scale quantum computer, architects have revealed various scalability issues including the constraints in a quantum control processor, which should be holistically analyzed to design a future scalable control processor. However, it has been impossible to identify and resolve the processor's scalability bottleneck due to the absence of a reliable tool to explore an extensive design space including microarchitecture, device technology, and operating temperature.

Proceedings - International Symposium on Computer Architecture/Proceedings•May 31, 2022•32 citations

Quantum Computers and Their Simulation.

Thomas Lippert

Quantum computing is based on the exploitation of quantum effects to perform some important computations more efficiently than ever possible on classical computers. Well known quantum algorithms are Shors polynomial time factoring algorithm and Grovers data base search scheme. Their potential is due to the parallelism of a quantum computation increasing exponentially with the size of the computing device. IBM has succeeded in building a first working quantum computing device with up to 7 qubits based on NMR technology, however, the construction of large multi-qubit systems appears to become extremely difficult due to the loss of coherence of the quantum states. Like the design process of modern microprocessors which is carried out by means of sophisticated software, modelling and simulation of the entire QC device is even more relevant. Simulation is required in order to understand the functioning of quantum algorithms, to construct novel quantum algorithms, to write quantum programs, to teach quantum computing, to construct real quantum computers, to understand and fight de-coherence and to understand and control the influence of the environment. Since quantum parallelism increases exponentially with the size of the quantum computer, parallel supercomputers are required for realistic simulations. I intend to give an introduction into the simulation of quantum computers using conventional computers. The simulation is based on a generic physical model of quantum computer hardware. Issues like parallel gate level simulators, modelling of QCs, simulators for physical quantum computers are addressed.

ARCS Workshops•Jan 1, 2004•0 citations

Quantum Simulators: Architectures and Opportunities

Ehud Altman, Kenneth R. Brown, Giuseppe Carleo +34 more

Quantum simulators are a promising technology on the spectrum of quantum devices from specialized quantum experiments to universal quantum computers. These quantum devices utilize entanglement and many-particle behaviors to explore and solve hard scientific, engineering, and computational problems. Rapid development over the last two decades has produced more than 300 quantum simulators in operation worldwide using a wide variety of experimental platforms. Recent advances in several physical architectures promise a golden age of quantum simulators ranging from highly optimized special purpose simulators to flexible programmable devices. These developments have enabled a convergence of ideas drawn from fundamental physics, computer science, and device engineering. They have strong potential to address problems of societal importance, ranging from understanding vital chemical processes, to enabling the design of new materials with enhanced performance, to solving complex computational problems. It is the position of the community, as represented by participants of the NSF workshop on "Programmable Quantum Simulators," that investment in a national quantum simulator program is a high priority in order to accelerate the progress in this field and to result in the first practical applications of quantum machines. Such a program should address two areas of emphasis: (1) support for creating quantum simulator prototypes usable by the broader scientific community, complementary to the present universal quantum computer effort in industry; and (2) support for fundamental research carried out by a blend of multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary collaborations with resources for quantum simulator software, hardware, and education.

arXiv:1912.06938•PRX Quantum•Feb 24, 2021•581 citations

CC-Spin: A Micro-architecture design for scalable control of Spin-Qubit Quantum Processor

Amitabh Yadav

Quantum Computing is an emerging field of technology with the promise that engineered quantum systems can address hard problems such as, problems with exponential compute complexity in Chemistry, Genomics, Optimization and many more applications. Quantum Computer Architecture is an area of research targeted for the NISQ-era quantum computing and little research has been done for development of a scalable classical control and read-out infrastructure for the quantum processors. The project is aimed at study of SoC-FPGA design methodology and architecture design for control of quantum processor. The targeted quantum hardware is the Spin-Qubit in Semiconductor Quantum Dot Chip. The project is intended for understanding the design and working of a silicon-spin qubit for a computer (architecture) engineer. It further helps identify necessities for an architecture, Instruction Set requirements, bottlenecks and future challenges (specific to Spin-Qubit quantum processor) that would help in better designs for new control architectures. The objective of this thesis is directed towards addressing the architectural challenges for the quantum-classical hardware for controlling the NISQ-era quantum devices and beyond. We analyze the control infrastructure requirements and propose a micro-architecture and waveform generation methodology to integrate the physical device with the quantum compilation tool-chain.

•Jan 1, 2019•1 citation

Designing Quantum Computers

We have reached the stage in our development of quantum technologies at which we are now able to construct the building blocks necessary to create small-scale quantum processors and networks.The challenge is how we scale up to fully fault-tolerant quantum computers involving extremely large numbers of interacting quantum bits.

NTT technical review•May 1, 2021•1 citation

Challenges in Reliable Quantum Computing

Diana M. Franklin, Frederic T. Chong

Quantum computing is a new and promising technology with the potential of exponentially powerful computation - if only a large-scale one can be built. There are several challenges in building a large-scale quantum computer - fabrication, verification, and architecture. The power of quantum computing comes from the ability to store a complex state in a single bit. This also what makes quantum systems difficult to build, verify, and design. Quantum states are fragile, so fabrication must be precise, and bits must often operate at very low temperatures. Unfortunately, the complete state may not be measured precisely, so verification is difficult. Imagine verifying an operation that is expected to not always get the same answer, but only an answer with a particular probability! Finally, errors occur much more often than with classical computing, making error correction the dominant task that quantum architectures need to perform well. We provide a basic tutorial of quantum computation for the system designer and examine the fundamental design and verification issues in constructing scalable quantum computers. We find the primary issues to be the verification of precise fabrication constraints, the design of quantum communication mechanisms, and the design of classical control circuitry for quantum operation.

Kluwer Academic Publishers eBooks•Feb 17, 2006•21 citations
In this essay, I look at (bemoan) the issues surrounding simulating quantum systems in order to design quantum devices for quantum technologies. The program runs into a natural difficulty that simulating quantum systems really require a proper quantum simulator. The problem is likened to the "tyranny of numbers" that faced computer engineers in the 1960s.
10+K qubit quantum computer is essential to achieve a true sense of quantum supremacy. With the recent effort towards the large-scale quantum computer, architects have revealed various scalability issues including the constraints in a quantum control processor, which should be holistically analyzed to design a future scalable control processor. However, it has been impossible to identify and resolve the processor's scalability bottleneck due to the absence of a reliable tool to explore an extensive design space including microarchitecture, device technology, and operating temperature.
Quantum computing is based on the exploitation of quantum effects to perform some important computations more efficiently than ever possible on classical computers. Well known quantum algorithms are Shors polynomial time factoring algorithm and Grovers data base search scheme. Their potential is due to the parallelism of a quantum computation increasing exponentially with the size of the computing device. IBM has succeeded in building a first working quantum computing device with up to 7 qubits based on NMR technology, however, the construction of large multi-qubit systems appears to become extremely difficult due to the loss of coherence of the quantum states. Like the design process of modern microprocessors which is carried out by means of sophisticated software, modelling and simulation of the entire QC device is even more relevant. Simulation is required in order to understand the functioning of quantum algorithms, to construct novel quantum algorithms, to write quantum programs, to teach quantum computing, to construct real quantum computers, to understand and fight de-coherence and to understand and control the influence of the environment. Since quantum parallelism increases exponentially with the size of the quantum computer, parallel supercomputers are required for realistic simulations. I intend to give an introduction into the simulation of quantum computers using conventional computers. The simulation is based on a generic physical model of quantum computer hardware. Issues like parallel gate level simulators, modelling of QCs, simulators for physical quantum computers are addressed.
Quantum simulators are a promising technology on the spectrum of quantum devices from specialized quantum experiments to universal quantum computers. These quantum devices utilize entanglement and many-particle behaviors to explore and solve hard scientific, engineering, and computational problems. Rapid development over the last two decades has produced more than 300 quantum simulators in operation worldwide using a wide variety of experimental platforms. Recent advances in several physical architectures promise a golden age of quantum simulators ranging from highly optimized special purpose simulators to flexible programmable devices. These developments have enabled a convergence of ideas drawn from fundamental physics, computer science, and device engineering. They have strong potential to address problems of societal importance, ranging from understanding vital chemical processes, to enabling the design of new materials with enhanced performance, to solving complex computational problems. It is the position of the community, as represented by participants of the NSF workshop on "Programmable Quantum Simulators," that investment in a national quantum simulator program is a high priority in order to accelerate the progress in this field and to result in the first practical applications of quantum machines. Such a program should address two areas of emphasis: (1) support for creating quantum simulator prototypes usable by the broader scientific community, complementary to the present universal quantum computer effort in industry; and (2) support for fundamental research carried out by a blend of multi-investigator, multi-disciplinary collaborations with resources for quantum simulator software, hardware, and education.
Quantum Computing is an emerging field of technology with the promise that engineered quantum systems can address hard problems such as, problems with exponential compute complexity in Chemistry, Genomics, Optimization and many more applications. Quantum Computer Architecture is an area of research targeted for the NISQ-era quantum computing and little research has been done for development of a scalable classical control and read-out infrastructure for the quantum processors. The project is aimed at study of SoC-FPGA design methodology and architecture design for control of quantum processor. The targeted quantum hardware is the Spin-Qubit in Semiconductor Quantum Dot Chip. The project is intended for understanding the design and working of a silicon-spin qubit for a computer (architecture) engineer. It further helps identify necessities for an architecture, Instruction Set requirements, bottlenecks and future challenges (specific to Spin-Qubit quantum processor) that would help in better designs for new control architectures. The objective of this thesis is directed towards addressing the architectural challenges for the quantum-classical hardware for controlling the NISQ-era quantum devices and beyond. We analyze the control infrastructure requirements and propose a micro-architecture and waveform generation methodology to integrate the physical device with the quantum compilation tool-chain.
Quantum computing is a new and promising technology with the potential of exponentially powerful computation - if only a large-scale one can be built. There are several challenges in building a large-scale quantum computer - fabrication, verification, and architecture. The power of quantum computing comes from the ability to store a complex state in a single bit. This also what makes quantum systems difficult to build, verify, and design. Quantum states are fragile, so fabrication must be precise, and bits must often operate at very low temperatures. Unfortunately, the complete state may not be measured precisely, so verification is difficult. Imagine verifying an operation that is expected to not always get the same answer, but only an answer with a particular probability! Finally, errors occur much more often than with classical computing, making error correction the dominant task that quantum architectures need to perform well. We provide a basic tutorial of quantum computation for the system designer and examine the fundamental design and verification issues in constructing scalable quantum computers. We find the primary issues to be the verification of precise fabrication constraints, the design of quantum communication mechanisms, and the design of classical control circuitry for quantum operation.