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arXiv:1804.00036 · Theory and Practice of Logic Programming

Performing fully parallel constraint logic programming on a quantum annealer

Scott Pakin

Published May 5, 2018• 15 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Abstract Aquantum annealerexploits quantum effects to solve a particular type of optimization problem. The advantage of this specialized hardware is that it effectively considers all possible solutions in parallel, thereby potentially outperforming classical computing systems. However, despite quantum annealers having recently become commercially available, there are relatively few high-level programming models that target these devices. In this article, we show how to compile a subset of Prolog enhanced with support for constraint logic programming into a two-local Ising-model Hamiltonian suitable for execution on a quantum annealer. In particular, we describe the series of transformations one can apply to convert constraint logic programs expressed in Prolog into an executable form that bears virtually no resemblance to a classical machine model yet that evaluates the specified constraints in a fully parallel manner. We evaluate our efforts on a 1,095-qubit D-Wave 2X quantum annealer and describe the approach's associated capabilities and shortcomings.

DOI
10.1017/s1471068418000066

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Abstract Aquantum annealerexploits quantum effects to solve a particular type of optimization problem. The advantage of this specialized hardware is that it effectively considers all possible solutions in parallel, thereby potentially outperforming classical computing systems. However, despite quantum annealers having recently become commercially available, there are relatively few high-level programming models that target these devices. In this article, we show how to compile a subset of Prolog enhanced with support for constraint logic programming into a two-local Ising-model Hamiltonian suitable for execution on a quantum annealer. In particular, we describe the series of transformations one can apply to convert constraint logic programs expressed in Prolog into an executable form that bears virtually no resemblance to a classical machine model yet that evaluates the specified constraints in a fully parallel manner. We evaluate our efforts on a 1,095-qubit D-Wave 2X quantum annealer and describe the approach's associated capabilities and shortcomings.
Quantum annealing is a form of quantum computing that exploits quantum effects to probabilistically solve a specific, NP-hard problem: finding the ground state of a classical, Ising-model Hamiltonian. Because physical quantum annealers are already available, there exists the pressing question of how to program such systems. That is, how can one map a computational problem into the coefficients of an Ising-model Hamiltonian for solution by quantum-annealing hardware? In this article, we address that question primarily from a practical standpoint. We survey extant software tools intended for programming D-wave annealing-based quantum processors and examine the programming model and solution technique promoted by each tool in an attempt to showcase the variety of contemporary approaches to solving computationally challenging problems on an existing annealing-based quantum computer.
A quantum annealer solves optimization problems by exploiting quantum effects. Problems are represented as Hamiltonian functions that define an energy landscape. The quantum-annealing hardware relaxes to a solution corresponding to the ground state of the energy landscape. Expressing arbitrary programming problems in terms of real-valued Hamiltonian-function coefficients is unintuitive and challenging. This paper addresses the difficulty of programming quantum annealers by presenting a compilation framework that compiles a subset of C code to a quantum machine instruction (QMI) to be executed on a quantum annealer. Our work is based on a modular software stack that facilitates programming D-Wave quantum annealers by successively lowering code from C to Verilog to a symbolic “quantum macro assembly language” and finally to a device-specific Hamiltonian function. We demonstrate the capabilities of our software stack on a set of problems written in C and executed on a D-Wave 2000Q quantum annealer.
The recent availability of the first commercial quantum computers has provided a promising tool to tackle NP hard problems which can only be solved heuristically with present techniques. However, it is unclear if the current state of quantum computing already provides a quantum advantage over the current state of the art in classical computing. This article assesses the performance of the D-Wave 2X quantum annealer on two NP hard graph problems, in particular clique finding and graph partitioning. For this, we provide formulations as Qubo and Ising Hamiltonians suitable for the quantum annealer and compare a variety of quantum solvers (Sapi, QBSolv, QSage provided by D-Wave Sys, Inc.) to current classical algorithms (METIS, Simulated Annealing, third-party clique finding and graph splitting heuristics) on certain test sets of graphs. We demonstrate that for small graph instances, classical methods still outperform the quantum annealer in terms of computing time, even though the quality of the best solutions obtained is comparable. Nevertheless, due to the limited problem size which can be embedded on the D-Wave 2X chip, the aforementioned finding applies to most of problems of general nature solvable on the quantum annealer. For instances specifically designed to fit the D-Wave 2X architecture, we observe substantial speed-ups in computing time over classical approaches.
Quantum Annealing is an alternative type of computation in which problems are encoded in quantum Hamiltonians (energy functions) and quantum dynamics is used to find solutions (ground states of minimal energy). Quantum computers such as the D-Wave systems are indeed implementing those ideas in hardware, as well as "quantum-inspired" devices based on classical electronics such as Fujitsu’s Digital Annealing Unit. All those systems use the same modeling language: Quadratic Unconstrained Binary Optimization (QUBO). However, QUBO is a low-level language and for modeling combinatorial problems such as constraint satisfaction and constrained optimization problems, we need to introduce higher-level abstractions in order to define complex constraints.
Abstract Quantum annealing has the potential to find low energy solutions of NP-hard problems that can be expressed as quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problems. However, the hardware of the quantum annealer manufactured by D-Wave Systems, which we consider in this work, is sparsely connected and moderately sized (on the order of thousands of qubits), thus necessitating a minor-embedding of a logical problem onto the physical qubit hardware. The combination of relatively small hardware sizes and the necessity of a minor-embedding can mean that solving large optimization problems is not possible on current quantum annealers. In this research, we show that a hybrid approach combining parallel quantum annealing with graph decomposition allows one to solve larger optimization problem accurately. We apply the approach to the Maximum Clique problem on graphs with up to 120 nodes and 6395 edges.
As quantum computers continue to improve and support larger, more complex computations, smart control hardware and compilers are needed to efficiently leverage the capabilities of these systems. This paper introduces a novel approach to enhance the execution of quantum algorithms on distributed quantum systems. The proposed method involves the development of a hardware design that supports parallel instruction execution and a compiler that modifies the order of instructions to increase parallelism opportunities. The hardware design can be flexibly configured to facilitate parallel execution of instructions that have identical parameters. Furthermore, the compiler uses the underlying hardware constraints to intelligently reorder and decompose instructions to avoid dependencies. The compiler, hardware, and their combination are evaluated using a runtime calculator and a benchmark quantum algorithm set. The results demonstrate a significant speedup, achieving a maximum average speedup of 16.5x and a maximum single-benchmark speedup of 56.2x relative to a baseline, serial execution model. Furthermore, we show a speedup can be obtained across all benchmarks using any of the proposed hardware schemes, although the degree of speedup is largely dependent on the type of quantum algorithm. Taken together, the results of this paper represent a significant step towards realizing high-performance quantum computing systems.