While quantum computers promise to solve some scientifically and commercially valuable problems thought intractable for classical machines, delivering on this promise will require a large-scale quantum machine. Understanding the impact of architecture design choices for a scaled quantum stack for specific applications, prior to full realization of the quantum system, is an important open challenge. To this end, we develop a framework for quantum resource estimation, abstracting the layers of the stack, to estimate resources required across these layers for large-scale quantum applications. Using a tool that implements this framework, we assess three scaled quantum applications and find that hundreds of thousands to millions of physical qubits are needed to achieve practical quantum advantage. We identify three qubit parameters, namely size, speed, and controllability, that are critical at scale to rendering these applications practical. A goal of our work is to accelerate progress towards practical quantum advantage by enabling the broader community to explore design choices across the stack, from algorithms to qubits.
While quantum computers promise to solve some scientifically and commercially valuable problems thought intractable for classical machines, delivering on this promise will require a large-scale quantum machine. Understanding the impact of architecture design choices for a scaled quantum stack for specific applications, prior to full realization of the quantum system, is an important open challenge. To this end, we develop a framework for quantum resource estimation, abstracting the layers of the stack, to estimate resources required across these layers for large-scale quantum applications. Using a tool that implements this framework, we assess three scaled quantum applications and find that hundreds of thousands to millions of physical qubits are needed to achieve practical quantum advantage. We identify three qubit parameters, namely size, speed, and controllability, that are critical at scale to rendering these applications practical. A goal of our work is to accelerate progress towards practical quantum advantage by enabling the broader community to explore design choices across the stack, from algorithms to qubits.
In the span of four decades, quantum computation has evolved from an intellectual curiosity to a potentially realizable technology. Today, small-scale demonstrations have become possible for quantum algorithmic primitives on hundreds of physical qubits. Nevertheless, there are significant outstanding challenges in quantum hardware, fabrication, software architecture, and algorithms on the path towards a full-stack scalable quantum computing technology. Here, we provide a comprehensive review of these scaling challenges. We show how to facilitate scaling by adopting existing semiconductor technology to build much higher-quality qubits, employing systems engineering approaches, and performing distributed heterogeneous quantum-classical computing. We provide a detailed resource and sensitivity analysis for quantum applications on surface-code error-corrected quantum computers given current, target, and desired hardware specifications based on superconducting qubits, accounting for a realistic distribution of errors. We provide comprehensive resource estimates for several utility-scale applications including quantum chemistry calculations, catalyst design, NMR spectroscopy, and Fermi-Hubbard simulation. We show that orders of magnitude enhancement in performance could be obtained by a combination of hardware improvements and tight quantum-HPC integration. Furthermore, we introduce high-performance architectures for quantum-probabilistic computing with custom-designed accelerators to tackle today's industry-scale classical optimization, machine learning, and quantum simulation tasks in a cost-effective manner.
Quantum computing promises the ability to compute properties of quantum systems exponentially faster than classical computers. Quantum advantage is achieved when a practical problem is solved more efficiently on a quantum computer than on a classical computer. Demonstrating quantum advantage requires a powerful quantum computer with low error rates and an efficient quantum algorithm that has a useful application. Despite rapid progress in hardware development, we still lack useful applications that are feasible for the next generation of quantum computers. Here we argue that an exponential quantum advantage exists in producing numerical resource estimates of larger quantum algorithms by accurately measuring simulation errors. We provide a quantum algorithm for measuring simulation errors of Trotter-based algorithms. Our results indicate that this method will reduce runtimes of quantum algorithms by approximately three orders of magnitude for one-hundred qubit systems. We also predict that these reductions will increase with system size. The methods we propose require relatively few qubits and operations, meaning the next generation of quantum computers could compute simulation errors for classically intractable systems. Since the underlying computations that lead to reduced resource estimates are infeasible for classical computers, this task is a candidate for demonstrating practical quantum advantage.
Quantum computing has emerged as a promising paradigm for addressing computational challenges in physics that remain intractable for classical methods. This study presents a quantitative benchmarking analysis of prominent quantum algorithms applied to representative physics problem classes, with the objective of evaluating their computational performance relative to state-of-the-art classical algorithms. Using standardized performance metrics—including execution time, algorithmic complexity, resource utilization, accuracy, scalability, and quantum advantage ratios—the study systematically compares quantum and classical approaches across multiple experimental configurations. The results demonstrate that quantum algorithms exhibit measurable performance gains for specific problem types, particularly in terms of runtime efficiency and scaling behavior, while also highlighting practical constraints related to qubit requirements and circuit depth. Visual and tabulated analyses further reveal that quantum advantage is highly problem-dependent and influenced by algorithmic structure and system size. Overall, the findings provide empirical evidence that quantum algorithms can offer substantial computational benefits for selected physics applications, while underscoring the importance of quantitative benchmarking in distinguishing theoretical promise from practical performance. This work contributes to ongoing efforts to objectively assess quantum advantage and informs future research directions in quantum algorithm development and physics-based applications.
Quantum algorithms are often represented in terms of quantum circuits operating on ideal (logical) qubits. However, the practical implementation of these algorithms poses significant challenges. Many quantum algorithms require a substantial number of logical qubits, and the inherent susceptibility to errors of quantum computers require quantum error correction. The integration of error correction introduces overhead in terms of both space (physical qubits required) and runtime (how long the algorithm needs to be run for). This paper addresses the complexity of comparing classical and quantum algorithms, primarily stemming from the additional quantum error correction overhead. We propose a comprehensive framework that facilitates a direct and meaningful comparison between classical and quantum algorithms. By acknowledging and addressing the challenges introduced by quantum error correction, our framework aims to provide a clearer understanding of the comparative performance of classical and quantum computing approaches. This work contributes to understanding the practical viability and potential advantages of quantum algorithms in real-world applications. We apply our framework to quantum cryptanalysis, since it is well known that quantum algorithms can break factoring and discrete logarithm based cryptography and weaken symmetric cryptography and hash functions. In order to estimate the real-world impact of these attacks, apart from tracking the development of fault-tolerant quantum computers it is important to have an estimate of the resources needed to implement these quantum attacks. This analysis provides state-of-the art snap-shot estimates of the realistic costs of implementing quantum attacks on these important cryptographic algorithms, assuming quantum fault-tolerance is achieved using surface code methods, and spanning a range of potential error rates. These estimates serve as a guide for gauging the realistic impact of these algorithms and for benchmarking the impact of future advances in quantum algorithms, circuit synthesis and optimization, fault-tolerance methods and physical error rates.
The transition from noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) processors to large-scale fault-tolerant machines requires more than incremental improvements in physical qubit fidelity. While advances in quantum error correction (QEC) theory continue to lower the theoretical overhead of quantum computing, much of this research remains abstracted from the physical realities of qubit implementations. This disconnect often results in hardware-agnostic designs that are inefficient or impractical to build. In this dissertation, I identify three primary gaps between theoretical QEC research and practical hardware: (1) the high levels of noise and temporal instability in experimental devices that impede scalable QEC; (2) the prohibitively large qubit and time costs of useful algorithms, driven largely by the limitations of the standard surface code; and (3) the failure of current resource estimates to account for hardware-level constraints, such as limited connectivity and the complexity of implementing non-local operations. To bridge these gaps, I propose a holistic, cross-stack approach where the error correction protocols and the physical hardware are designed in concert. By developing realistic device models and hardware-aware solutions at the lowest levels of the software stack, we can accelerate the path toward functional fault-tolerance. I present my work across three research thrusts: first, leveraging codesign to mitigate hardware-specific noise and reduce physical error rates; second, developing software tools for fault-tolerant quantum computers to reduce the space-time overhead of the QEC layer; and third, proposing two novel hardware-aware QEC architectures that provide practical, high-performance routes to scalable quantum computation.
The quantum information science community has seen a surge in new algorithmic developments across scientific domains. These developments have demonstrated polynomial or better improvements in computational and space complexity, incentivizing further research in the field. However, despite recent progress, many works fail to provide quantitative estimates on algorithmic scalability or quantum resources required -- e.g., number of logical qubits, error thresholds, etc. -- to realize the highly sought "quantum advantage." In this paper, we discuss several quantum algorithms and motivate the importance of such estimates. By example and under simple scaling assumptions, we approximate the computational expectations of a future quantum device for a high energy physics simulation algorithm and how it compares to its classical analog. We assert that a standard candle is necessary for claims of quantum advantage.