Quantum network coding has been proposed to improve resource utilization to support distributed computation but has not yet been put into practice. We investigate a particular implementation of quantum network coding using measurement-based quantum computation on IBM Q processors. We compare the performance of quantum network coding with entanglement swapping and entanglement distribution via linear cluster states. These protocols outperform quantum network coding in terms of the final Bell pair fidelities but are unsuitable for optimal resource utilization in complex networks with contention present. We demonstrate the suitability of noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices such as the IBM Q for the study of quantum networks. We also identify the factors that limit the performance of quantum network coding on these processors and provide estimates of error rates required to boost the final Bell pair fidelities to a point where they can be used for generation of genuinely random cryptographic keys, among other useful tasks. Surprisingly, the required error rates are only around a factor of 2 smaller than the current status, and we expect they will be achieved in the near future.
Quantum network coding has been proposed to improve resource utilization to support distributed computation but has not yet been put into practice. We investigate a particular implementation of quantum network coding using measurement-based quantum computation on IBM Q processors. We compare the performance of quantum network coding with entanglement swapping and entanglement distribution via linear cluster states. These protocols outperform quantum network coding in terms of the final Bell pair fidelities but are unsuitable for optimal resource utilization in complex networks with contention present. We demonstrate the suitability of noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices such as the IBM Q for the study of quantum networks. We also identify the factors that limit the performance of quantum network coding on these processors and provide estimates of error rates required to boost the final Bell pair fidelities to a point where they can be used for generation of genuinely random cryptographic keys, among other useful tasks. Surprisingly, the required error rates are only around a factor of 2 smaller than the current status, and we expect they will be achieved in the near future.
In quantum networks an important goal is to reduce resource requirements for the transport and communication of quantum information. Quantum network coding presents a way to do this by distributing entangled states over a network that would ordinarily exhibit contention. In this work, we study measurement-based quantum network coding (MQNC), which is a protocol particularly suitable for noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices. In particular, we develop techniques to adapt MQNC to state-of-the-art superconducting processors and subsequently demonstrate successful teleportation of quantum information, giving new insight into MQNC in this context after a previous study was not able to produce a useful degree of entanglement. The teleportation in our demonstration is shown to occur with fidelity higher than could be achieved via classical means, made possible by considering qubits from a polar cap of the Bloch sphere. We also present a generalization of MQNC with a simple mapping onto the heavy-hex processor layout and a direct mapping onto a proposed logical error-corrected layout. Our work provides some useful techniques to test and successfully carry out quantum network coding.
Quantum network coding is an effective solution for alleviating bottlenecks in quantum networks. We introduce a measurement-based quantum network coding scheme for quantum repeater networks (MQNC), and analyze its behavior based on results acquired from Monte Carlo simulation that includes various error sources over a butterfly network. By exploiting measurement-based quantum computing, operation on qubits for completing network coding proceeds in parallel. We show that such an approach offers advantages over other schemes in terms of the quantum circuit depth and therefore improves the communication fidelity without disturbing the aggregate throughput. The circuit depth of our protocol has been reduced by 56.5% compared to the quantum network coding scheme (QNC) introduced in 2012 by Satoh et al. For MQNC, we have found that the resulting entangled pairs' joint fidelity drops below 50% when the accuracy of local operations is lower than 98.9%, assuming that all initial Bell pairs across quantum repeaters have a fixed fidelity of 98%. Overall, MQNC showed substantially higher error tolerance compared to QNC and slightly better than buffer space multiplexing using step-by-step entanglement swapping, but not quite as strong as simultaneous entanglement swapping operations.
Quantum repeater networks have attracted attention for the implementation of long-distance and large-scale sharing of quantum states. Recently, researchers extended classical network coding, which is a technique for throughput enhancement, into quantum information. The utility of quantum network coding (QNC) has been shown under ideal conditions, but it has not been studied previously under conditions of noise and shortage of quantum resources. We analyzed QNC on a butterfly network, which can create end-to-end Bell pairs at twice the rate of the standard quantum network repeater approach. The joint fidelity of creating two Bell pairs has a small penalty for QNC relative to entanglement swapping. It will thus be useful when we care more about throughput than fidelity. We found that the output fidelity drops below 0.5 when the initial Bell pairs have fidelity F<0.90, even with perfect local gates. Local gate errors have a larger impact on quantum network coding than on entanglement swapping.
Quantum networks promise unconditionally secure communication and distributed quantum computing. Realizing these capabilities requires the reliable creation and maintenance of multipartite entanglement across large-scale networks. However, distributing complex entangled states among many nodes becomes increasingly challenging due to physical imperfections, architectural constraints, and the growing demands on network resources. This thesis presents practical methods that address two key facets of this broader problem. First, we introduce graph-theoretic protocols that generate GHZ states in Bell-pair networks using only local operations and classical communication, bypassing NP-hard subroutines while minimizing gate counts and Bell-pair consumption. Benchmarked on random network topologies and validated on IBM quantum hardware, these methods provide a scalable path to distributed quantum computing and multiparty communication. Second, we improve the performance of second-generation quantum repeater networks by incorporating bosonic quantum error correction. We show that memories with shorter coherence times, when protected by error correction, can outperform unencoded memories with significantly longer coherence times. We further address the problem of optimal memory-buffer allocation across repeater networks, introducing policies that reduce waiting times, thereby improving entanglement distribution efficiency. Overall, these results demonstrate practical and effective methods for improving performance and advancing the realization of near-term quantum networks.
Practical fault-tolerant quantum computation requires a large number of physical qubits, posing a major challenge for scaling up individual quantum processors. Distributed architectures offer a promising solution by interconnecting multiple processors through quantum networks. However, remote Bell-pair generation remains technically demanding, making it essential to assess computational performance under limited communication resources. In this work, we present a comprehensive resource analysis of distributed fault-tolerant quantum computation using superconducting processors connected by microwave or optical links. We show that even a single physical communication channel per node can substantially reduce the physical-qubit requirements per node under experimentally motivated, forward-looking microwave-link assumptions of a 1 MHz physical Bell-pair generation rate and 90% fidelity, although at the cost of a roughly tenfold increase in execution time. Conversely, reducing the execution-time overhead requires substantially greater communication resources, including higher Bell-pair fidelities and extensive multiplexing. These results demonstrate the potential feasibility of distributed fault-tolerant quantum computation with limited communication resources and provide a quantitative basis for balancing quantum-link performance, processor size, and execution time.
Quantum information technology has the potential to revolutionize computing, communications, and security. To fully realize its potential, quantum processors with millions of qubits are needed, which is still far from being accomplished. Thus, it is important to establish quantum networks to enable distributed quantum computing to leverage existing and near-term quantum processors into more powerful resources. This paper introduces a protocol to distribute entanglements among quantum devices within classical-quantum networks with limited quantum links, enabling more efficient quantum teleportation in near-term hybrid networks. The proposed protocol uses entanglement swapping to distribute entanglements efficiently in a butterfly network, then classical network coding is applied to enable quantum teleportation while overcoming network bottlenecks and minimizing qubit requirements for individual nodes. Experimental results show that the proposed protocol requires quantum resources that scale linearly with network size, with individual nodes only requiring a fixed number of qubits. For small network sizes of up to three transceiver pairs, the proposed protocol outperforms the benchmark by using 17% fewer qubit resources, achieving 8.8% higher accuracy, and with a 35% faster simulation time. The percentage improvement increases significantly for large network sizes. We also propose a protocol for securing entanglement distribution against malicious entanglements using quantum state encoding through rotation. Our analysis shows that this method requires no communication overhead and reduces the chance of a malicious node retrieving a quantum state to 7.2%. The achieved results point toward a protocol that enables a highly scalable, efficient, and secure near-term quantum Internet.