We propose a distributed quantum computing (DQC) architecture in which individual small-sized quantum computers are connected to a shared quantum gate processing unit (S-QGPU). The S-QGPU comprises a collection of hybrid two-qubit gate modules for remote gate operations. In contrast to conventional DQC systems, where each quantum computer is equipped with dedicated communication qubits, S-QGPU effectively pools the resources (e.g., the communication qubits) together for remote gate operations, and, thus, significantly reduces the cost of not only the local quantum computers but also the overall distributed system. Our preliminary analysis and simulation show that S-QGPU's shared resources for remote gate operations enable efficient resource utilization. When not all computing qubits (also called data qubits) in the system require simultaneous remote gate operations, S-QGPU-based DQC architecture demands fewer communication qubits, further decreasing the overall cost. Alternatively, with the same number of communication qubits, it can support a larger number of simultaneous remote gate operations more efficiently, especially when these operations occur in a burst mode.
We propose a distributed quantum computing (DQC) architecture in which individual small-sized quantum computers are connected to a shared quantum gate processing unit (S-QGPU). The S-QGPU comprises a collection of hybrid two-qubit gate modules for remote gate operations. In contrast to conventional DQC systems, where each quantum computer is equipped with dedicated communication qubits, S-QGPU effectively pools the resources (e.g., the communication qubits) together for remote gate operations, and, thus, significantly reduces the cost of not only the local quantum computers but also the overall distributed system. Our preliminary analysis and simulation show that S-QGPU's shared resources for remote gate operations enable efficient resource utilization. When not all computing qubits (also called data qubits) in the system require simultaneous remote gate operations, S-QGPU-based DQC architecture demands fewer communication qubits, further decreasing the overall cost. Alternatively, with the same number of communication qubits, it can support a larger number of simultaneous remote gate operations more efficiently, especially when these operations occur in a burst mode.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is a scalable way to build a large-scale quantum computing system. Previous compilers for DQC focus on either qubit-to-qubit inter-node gates or qubit-to-node nonlocal circuit blocks, missing opportunities of optimizing collective communication which consists of nonlocal gates over multiple nodes. In this paper, we observe that by utilizing patterns of collective communication, we can greatly reduce the amount of inter-node communication required to implement a group of nonlocal gates. We propose QuComm, the first compiler framework which unveils and analyzes collective communication patterns hidden in distributed quantum programs and efficiently routes inter-node gates on any DQC architecture based on discovered patterns, cutting down the overall communication cost of the target program. We also provide the first formalization of the communication buffer concept in DQC compiling. The communication buffer utilizes data qubits to store remote entanglement so that we can ensure enough communication resources on any DQC architecture to support the proposed optimizations for collective communication. Experimental results show that, compared to the state-of-the-art baseline, QuComm reduces the amount of inter-node communication by 54.9% on average, over various distributed quantum programs and DQC hardware configurations.
Abstract Distributed quantum computing (DQC) combines the computing power of multiple networked quantum processing modules, ideally enabling the execution of large quantum circuits without compromising performance or qubit connectivity 1,2 . Photonic networks are well suited as a versatile and reconfigurable interconnect layer for DQC; remote entanglement shared between matter qubits across the network enables all-to-all logical connectivity through quantum gate teleportation (QGT) 3,4 . For a scalable DQC architecture, the QGT implementation must be deterministic and repeatable; until now, no demonstration has satisfied these requirements. Here we experimentally demonstrate the distribution of quantum computations between two photonically interconnected trapped-ion modules. The modules, separated by about two metres, each contain dedicated network and circuit qubits. By using heralded remote entanglement between the network qubits, we deterministically teleport a controlled-Z (CZ) gate between two circuit qubits in separate modules, achieving 86% fidelity. We then execute Grover’s search algorithm 5 —to our knowledge, the first implementation of a distributed quantum algorithm comprising several non-local two-qubit gates—and measure a 71% success rate. Furthermore, we implement distributed iSWAP and SWAP circuits, compiled with two and three instances of QGT, respectively, demonstrating the ability to distribute arbitrary two-qubit operations 6 . As photons can be interfaced with a variety of systems, the versatile DQC architecture demonstrated here provides a viable pathway towards large-scale quantum computing for a range of physical platforms.
Scaling quantum computers, i.e., quantum processing units (QPUs) to enable the execution of large quantum circuits is a major challenge, especially for applications that should provide a quantum advantage over classical algorithms. One approach to scale QPUs is to connect multiple machines through quantum and classical channels to form clusters or even quantum networks. Using this paradigm, several smaller QPUs can collectively execute circuits that each would not be able on its own. However, communication between QPUs is costly as it requires generating and maintaining entanglement, and hence it should be used wisely. In this paper, we evaluate the architectures, and in particular the entanglement patterns, of variational quantum circuits in a distributed quantum computing (DQC) setting. That is, using Qiskit, we simulate the execution of an eight qubit circuit using four QPUs each with two computational and two communication qubits where non-local CX-gates are performed using the remote-CX protocol. We compare the performance of various circuits on a binary classification task where training is executed under ideal and testing under noisy conditions. The study provides initial results on suitable VQC architectures for the DQC paradigm, and indicates that a standard VQC baseline is not always the best choice, and alternative architectures that use entanglement between QPUs sparingly deliver better results under noise.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) architectures offer a scalable solution for the computational demands of large-scale quantum computing. In near-term DQC architectures, the costly remote quantum communication and the execution cost within quantum chips together significantly limit the execution efficiency of quantum circuits. To comprehensively optimize both costs, we propose DMapS, which consists of end-to-end algorithms for qubit mapping and routing. The qubit mapping component, DMapS-M, adopts a two-stage mapping strategy that decomposes a large quantum circuit into smaller ones and parallelizes the qubit mapping on quantum chips. The qubit routing component, DMapS-R, reduces remote quantum communication overhead by prioritizing the insertion of local SWAP gates and further improves transpilation efficiency by exploiting parallelism within chips. Our experimental results show that DMapS-M reduces overall overhead (including both remote quantum communication overhead and local SWAP gate overhead) by an average of 43.44% and 59.72%, respectively, compared to two baseline algorithms, and achieves an average speedup of 87.05x. DMapS-R, compared to the baseline algorithm, reduces overall overhead by an average of 8.85% and achieves an average transpilation speedup of 2.78×. Moreover, compared to the DQC-oriented quantum compiler, DMapS reduces remote communication overhead by an average of 75.16%.
In recent years, advances in quantum computing have been driven by substantial improvements in both the number and quality of qubits. As the field progresses, there is growing interest in interconnecting quantum systems to enable scalable computation through Distributed Quantum Computing (DQC) architectures. Consider a distributed quantum application executed across multiple Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) within a quantum data center, where remote gates require establishing entanglement between different QPUs. The creation of such end-to-end entanglement can lead to network congestion and resource contention. To address these challenges, we propose a resource management framework that maximizes fidelity-guaranteed throughput while satisfying dependency constraints. We first formulate the problem as a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to provide a performance benchmark. Building on this, we develop efficient approximate scheduling algorithms that achieve performance comparable to the optimization solver. Although a trade-off exists between execution time and network throughput, simulation results demonstrate that one of the proposed strategies, Weighted Group Least Resource First (WGLRF), closely approximates the solver’s performance across most scenarios. These findings suggest that the lightweight strategy is sufficient for current DQC settings, offering a practical solution for managing remote-gate resource contention in distributed quantum circuits and improving overall system performance.
Distributed quantum computing relies on coordinated operations between remote quantum processing units (QPUs), yet most existing work either assumes full connectivity, unrealistic for large networks, or relies on entanglement swapping. To mitigate the overhead of communication, we propose a scheme for the distribution of collective quantum operations among remote quantum processing units by exploiting distributed fan-out operations to a central node in network architectures similar to those used for high-performance computing, which requires only pre-shared entanglement, local operations and classical communication. We show that a general diagonal gate can be distributed among any number of nodes and provide the ebit cost bounds. For a single distributed multicontrolled gate, this amounts to a single additional Bell pair over the theoretically optimal calculation with all-to-all pre-shared entanglement, demonstrating better scalability when compared to current proposals based on entanglement swapping through a network. We provide a recipe for the lumped distribution of gates such as arbitrarily-sized Toffoli and multicontrolled Z, andRzz(θ)gates. Finally, we provide an exact implementation of a distributed Grover's search algorithm using this protocol to partition the circuit, with Bell pair cost growing linearly with the number of Grover iterations and the number of partitions, and show how these techniques can be applied to other algorithms such as QAOA. Our results show that alternative approaches to entanglement swapping can provide major benefits in distributed quantum computing, pointing to promising avenues for future research.