Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is widely regarded as a promising approach to overcome quantum hardware limitations. A major challenge in DQC lies in reducing the communication cost introduced by remote CNOT gates, which are significantly slower and more resource-consuming than local operations. Existing DQC approaches treat the three essential components (qubit allocation, entanglement management, and network scheduling) as independent stages, optimizing each in isolation. However, we observe that these components are inherently interdependent, and therefore adopting a unified optimization strategy can be more efficient to achieve the global optimal solutions. Consequently, we propose UNIQ, a novel DQC optimization framework that integrates all three components into a non-linear integer programming (NIP) model. UNIQ aims to reduce the circuit runtime by maximizing parallel Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pair generation through the use of idle communication qubits, while simultaneously minimizing the communication cost of remote gates. To solve this NP-hard formulated problem, we adopt two key strategies: a greedy algorithm for efficiently mapping logical qubits to different QPUs, and a JIT (Just-In-Time) approach that builds EPR pairs in parallel within each time slot. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that our approach is widely applicable to diverse quantum circuits and QPU topologies, while substantially reducing communication cost and runtime over existing methods.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is widely regarded as a promising approach to overcome quantum hardware limitations. A major challenge in DQC lies in reducing the communication cost introduced by remote CNOT gates, which are significantly slower and more resource-consuming than local operations. Existing DQC approaches treat the three essential components (qubit allocation, entanglement management, and network scheduling) as independent stages, optimizing each in isolation. However, we observe that these components are inherently interdependent, and therefore adopting a unified optimization strategy can be more efficient to achieve the global optimal solutions. Consequently, we propose UNIQ, a novel DQC optimization framework that integrates all three components into a non-linear integer programming (NIP) model. UNIQ aims to reduce the circuit runtime by maximizing parallel Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pair generation through the use of idle communication qubits, while simultaneously minimizing the communication cost of remote gates. To solve this NP-hard formulated problem, we adopt two key strategies: a greedy algorithm for efficiently mapping logical qubits to different QPUs, and a JIT (Just-In-Time) approach that builds EPR pairs in parallel within each time slot. Extensive simulation results demonstrate that our approach is widely applicable to diverse quantum circuits and QPU topologies, while substantially reducing communication cost and runtime over existing methods.
Distributed Quantum Computing (DQC) enables the execution of quantum circuits across multiple interconnected quantum processing units (QPUs), but requiring efficient qubit allocation and network topology design to optimize computational performance. Proper qubit allocation minimizes entanglement costs across QPUs, balances computational workload, and ensures efficient execution of quantum computing tasks. Meanwhile, network topology plays a crucial role in reducing entanglement routing complexity and communication overhead for remote quantum gate operations. In this paper, we propose a joint optimization framework for network topology design and qubit allocation in DQC to minimize the communication overhead. We formulate the problem as a tractable integer nonlinear programming model that explicitly incorporates entanglement routing, thereby ensuring a more tractable optimization process. To further improve computational efficiency, we present a partially linearized version of the problem, making it solvable using any classical optimization solver. Extensive simulations on both random and real-world quantum circuits validate the effectiveness of our proposed approach, demonstrating its capability to handle complex quantum circuits while reducing communication costs in DQC.
In many practical applications, quantum algorithms require several qubits, significantly more than those available with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is considered a scalable approach to increasing the number of available qubits for computational tasks. In the DQC setting, a quantum compiler must find the best partitioning for the quantum algorithm and then perform smart non-local operations scheduling to optimize the consumption of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pairs. In this work, the focus is on minimizing the use of EPR pairs when the circuit structure allows for multiple non-local gates to utilize a single TeleGate operation. This is achieved by using a greedy algorithm that explores the circuit and groups together the gates that could share an EPR pair while also changing the order of commutative gates when necessary. With this preliminary pass, the compiled circuits show reduced depth and EPR usage. Since the quality of each EPR pair quickly deteriorates, the number of non-local gates using the same EPR pair should also be bounded. This means that, depending on the features of the target quantum network, the user can achieve different levels of optimization. Here, it is shown that this approach brings benefits even while assuming a low EPR pair lifetime.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) has emerged as a promising approach to overcome the scalability limitations of monolithic quantum processors in terms of computational capability. However, realising the full potential of DQC requires effective resource management and circuit scheduling. This involves efficiently assigning each circuit to a subset of quantum processing units (QPUs), based on factors such as their computational power and connectivity. In heterogeneous DQC networks with arbitrary connectivity topologies and non-identical QPUs, this becomes a complex challenge. This paper addresses resource management and circuit scheduling in such settings, with a focus on computing resource allocation in a quantum data centre. We propose circuit scheduling algorithms based on Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Our MILP model accounts for errors arising from inter-QPU communication. In particular, the proposed schemes consider key factors, including network topology, QPU capacities, and quantum circuit structure, to make efficient scheduling and allocation decisions. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms significantly improve circuit execution time and scheduling efficiency (measured by makespan and throughput), while also reducing inter-QPU communication overhead, compared to baseline strategies. This work provides valuable insights into resource management strategies for scalable and heterogeneous DQC systems.
Quantum computing is a promising paradigm for problems that are challenging for classical machines, but realizing that promise requires far more qubits than a single processor can offer. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) scales out by connecting multiple quantum processing units (QPUs), at the cost of making entanglement the scarce resource: every remote gate consumes a Bell pair, and inter-QPU links generate Bell pairs at finite rates orders of magnitude slower than local gates. Since quantum programs are executed repeatedly, this rate bounds how fast shots complete and thus how fast results are obtained. Existing DQC compilers emit a single implementation per circuit, so throughput is capped by its busiest link while other links stay idle. We observe that alternative compilations of the same circuit are logically equivalent yet stress different links; executing them concurrently and pooling their samples converts idle Bell pairs into additional shots. We formulate the joint selection of compilations and allocation of shots under per-link Bell-pair capacities as Candidate-Constrained Max-Shot Allocation (CMA), prove it NP-hard, and solve it with a dynamic program and its approximate variant AppDP, a compact MILP, and a greedy heuristic Effi. In simulation on six-QPU networks, multi-compilation raises throughput by 2-4.5* over the single compilation and correspondingly improves output fidelity under equal Bell-pair budgets. On hardware, it increases measured fidelity by up to 93% and reaches the single-compilation fidelity in up to 10* less time. Scaling to 36 QPUs and 144-qubit circuits, MILP improves throughput over the single compilation by 76.8% on average across 48 configurations while Effi allocates in milliseconds.
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.
The scalability of quantum computing is currently limited by physical, technological, and architectural constraints that hinder the integration of a large number of qubits within a single quantum processor. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) has therefore emerged as a viable alternative, aiming to interconnect multiple smaller quantum processing units (QPUs) to jointly operate on a global quantum state. While this paradigm enables scalable architectures, it introduces significant communication overhead due to the cost of non-local quantum operations across distant nodes. In this work we propose a distributed formulation of the iQFT over a quantum network composed of P nodes, each hosting Q qubits, enabling the execution on a logical register of size n=P⋅Q. Furthermore, we introduce a communication-efficient variant based on a threshold-driven pruning strategy, referred to as a \emph{communication horizon}, which exploits the exponentially decreasing significance of controlled-phase rotations to safely omit remote gates with negligible impact. By reducing the number of inter-node quantum interactions, the proposed approach significantly lowers the quantum communication requirements of the distributed iQFT while preserving its functional correctness. Crucially, we show that this approach fundamentally alters the scaling of the algorithm: the entanglement resource consumption per node saturates to a constant value, reducing the global communication complexity from quadratic O(P2) to linear O(P). As the iQFT constitutes a critical building block in many quantum algorithms, the techniques presented in this paper directly contribute to improving the practicality and scalability of distributed quantum computation.