We estimate the run-time and energy consumption of simulating non-equilibrium dynamics on neutral atom quantum computers in analog mode, directly comparing their performance to state-of-the-art classical methods, namely Matrix Product States and Neural Quantum States. By collecting both experimental data from a quantum processing unit (QPU) in analog mode and numerical benchmarks, we enable accurate predictions of run-time and energy consumption for large-scale simulations on both QPUs and classical systems through fitting of theoretical scaling laws. Our analysis shows that neutral atom devices are already operating in a competitive regime, achieving comparable or superior performance to classical approaches while consuming significantly less energy. These results demonstrate the potential of analog neutral atom quantum computing for energy-efficient simulation and highlight a viable path toward sustainable computational strategies.
We estimate the run-time and energy consumption of simulating non-equilibrium dynamics on neutral atom quantum computers in analog mode, directly comparing their performance to state-of-the-art classical methods, namely Matrix Product States and Neural Quantum States. By collecting both experimental data from a quantum processing unit (QPU) in analog mode and numerical benchmarks, we enable accurate predictions of run-time and energy consumption for large-scale simulations on both QPUs and classical systems through fitting of theoretical scaling laws. Our analysis shows that neutral atom devices are already operating in a competitive regime, achieving comparable or superior performance to classical approaches while consuming significantly less energy. These results demonstrate the potential of analog neutral atom quantum computing for energy-efficient simulation and highlight a viable path toward sustainable computational strategies.
We estimate the run-time and energy consumption of simulating nonequilibrium dynamics on neutral-atom quantum computers in analog mode, directly comparing their performance to classical methods, namely matrix product states and neural quantum states. By collecting both experimental data from a quantum processing unit (QPU) in analog mode and numerical benchmarks, we enable accurate predictions of run-time and energy consumption for large-scale simulations on both QPUs and classical systems through fitting of theoretical scaling laws. Our analysis shows that neutral-atom devices are already operating in a competitive regime, achieving comparable or superior performance to classical approaches while consuming significantly less energy. These results demonstrate the potential of analog neutral-atom quantum computing for energy-efficient simulation and highlight a viable path toward sustainable computational strategies.
Analog quantum processors based on Rydberg atom arrays are a powerful platform for many-body quantum simulation, combinatorial optimization, and graph machine learning. As these devices become increasingly accessible, establishing confidence in their outputs requires predictive models that quantitatively connect microscopic hardware imperfections to empirical results. Here, we present a noise-aware emulation framework that propagates the dominant noise mechanisms throughout the full computation cycle to predict device behavior. We validate the framework by benchmarking two representative protocols, quantum annealing and post-quench dynamics, on three Pasqal quantum processors where classical simulations still provide ground truth. Across all three devices, the measured observables fall within the uncertainty envelopes predicted by the emulator. Beyond reproducing the data, the framework isolates which physical mechanism dominates in each operating regime, provides quantitative guidance for algorithm design and hardware improvements, and establishes a foundation for verifying analog processors in regimes beyond classical reach.
While extensive research over the past decades has been dedicated to developing scalable quantum computers, the question of their energetic performance has only gained attention more recently, but its importance is now recognized. In fact, quantum computers can only be a viable alternative if their energy cost scales favorably, and some research has shown that there is even a potential quantum energy advantage. In parallel, Rydberg atoms have recently emerged as one of the most promising platforms to implement a large-scale quantum computer. This work aims at contributing first steps to understand the energy efficiency of this platform, by investigating the energy consumption of the different elements of a Rydberg atom quantum computer. First, an experimental implementation of the Quantum Phase Estimation algorithm is analyzed, and an estimation of the energetic cost of executing it is calculated. Then, we derive an estimate of how the energy cost of performing the Quantum Fourier Transform scales with the number of qubits in the Rydberg platform. This analysis facilitates a comparison of the energy consumption of different elements within a Rydberg atom quantum computer, from the preparation of the atoms to the execution of the algorithm, and the measurement of the final state, enabling the evaluation of the energy expenditure of the Rydberg platform and the identification of potential improvements. Finally, we use the Quantum Fourier Transform as an energetic benchmark, comparing the scaling we obtained to that of the execution of the Discrete Fourier Transform in two state-of-the-art classical supercomputers. This comparison indicates that, in an ideal error-free scenario, a quantum energy advantage is achieved in the Rydberg platform for the Fourier Transform, in a regime where classical algorithms are still faster.
Quantum machine learning has gained considerable attention as quantum technology advances, presenting a promising approach for efficiently learning complex data patterns. Despite this promise, most contemporary quantum methods require significant resources for variational parameter optimization and face issues with vanishing gradients, leading to experiments that are either limited in scale or lack potential for quantum advantage. To address this, we develop a general-purpose, gradient-free, and scalable quantum reservoir learning algorithm that harnesses the quantum dynamics of neutral-atom analog quantum computers to process data. We experimentally implement the algorithm, achieving competitive performance across various categories of machine learning tasks, including binary and multi-class classification, as well as timeseries prediction. Effective and improving learning is observed with increasing system sizes of up to 108 qubits, demonstrating the largest quantum machine learning experiment to date. We further observe comparative quantum kernel advantage in learning tasks by constructing synthetic datasets based on the geometric differences between generated quantum and classical data kernels. Our findings demonstrate the potential of utilizing classically intractable quantum correlations for effective machine learning. We expect these results to stimulate further extensions to different quantum hardware and machine learning paradigms, including early fault-tolerant hardware and generative machine learning tasks.
We propose the Many-Body Quantum Score (MBQS), a practical and scalable application-level benchmark protocol designed to evaluate how accurately quantum processing units (QPUs)---both gate-based and analog---can simulate many-body quantum dynamics. MBQS quantifies performance by identifying the maximum number of qubits with which a QPU can reliably reproduce correlation functions of the transverse-field Ising model following a specific quantum quench. This quench reveals a global correlation surge, a collective peak of connected correlations at all distances, which to our knowledge had not been noticed so far in this context. This paper presents the MBQS protocol and highlights its design principles, supported by analytical insights, classical simulations, and experimental data. It also reports an implementation on Ruby, an analog QPU based on Rydberg atoms developed by the Pasqal company. These findings demonstrate MBQS's potential as a robust and informative tool for benchmarking near-term quantum devices for many-body physics. While the present experimental validation has been performed on an analog device, the protocol has the potential to be implemented on digital platforms as well.
Neutral-atom quantum computers provide a scalable platform for large-scale quantum computation due to their all-optical control, room-temperature operation, and flexible lattice geometry. Although the favorable energy characteristics of these systems are well recognized, the relationship between system-level energy consumption, runtime, and computational fidelity remains poorly understood, limiting practical scheduling decisions. In this work, we develop a hardware-grounded analytical model that captures how energy and runtime scale with qubit utilization in neutral-atom systems.
We introduce PaQit, a fidelity-aware qubit packing framework that integrates device-level Rydberg interaction physics with system-level scheduling to jointly optimize energy, runtime, and fidelity. By translating fidelity targets into packing decisions, PaQit identifies operating regimes that maximize parallelism while respecting interaction-driven crosstalk constraints. We validate the analytical framework using simulations of QuEra's analog Aquila system and digital Gemini system, as well as real hardware executions, demonstrating close agreement between the predicted trends and observed system behavior.