Much recent work on distributed quantum computing have focused on the use of entangled pairs and distributed two qubit gates. But there has also been work on efficient schemes for achieving multipartite entanglement between nodes in a single shot, removing the need to generate multipartite entangled states using many entangled pairs. This paper looks at how multipartite entanglement resources (e.g., GHZ states) can be useful for distributed fan-out operations; we also consider the use of qudits of dimension four for distributed quantum circuit compression. In particular, we consider how such fan-out operations and qudits can be used to implement circuits which are challenging for distributed quantum computation, involving pairwise qubit interactions, i.e., what has been called global gates (a.k.a. global Mølmer-Sørensen gates). Such gates have been explored to possibly yield more efficient computations via reduced circuit depth, and can be carried out efficiently in some types of quantum hardware (e.g., trapped-ion quantum computers); we consider this as an exploration of an ``extreme'' case for distribution given the global qubit-qubit interactions. We also conclude with some implications for future work on quantum circuit compilation and quantum data centre design.
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8 pages, 10 figures; preliminary version (if mistakes found - please contact the author)
Much recent work on distributed quantum computing have focused on the use of entangled pairs and distributed two qubit gates. But there has also been work on efficient schemes for achieving multipartite entanglement between nodes in a single shot, removing the need to generate multipartite entangled states using many entangled pairs. This paper looks at how multipartite entanglement resources (e.g., GHZ states) can be useful for distributed fan-out operations; we also consider the use of qudits of dimension four for distributed quantum circuit compression. In particular, we consider how such fan-out operations and qudits can be used to implement circuits which are challenging for distributed quantum computation, involving pairwise qubit interactions, i.e., what has been called global gates (a.k.a. global Mølmer-Sørensen gates). Such gates have been explored to possibly yield more efficient computations via reduced circuit depth, and can be carried out efficiently in some types of quantum hardware (e.g., trapped-ion quantum computers); we consider this as an exploration of an ``extreme'' case for distribution given the global qubit-qubit interactions. We also conclude with some implications for future work on quantum circuit compilation and quantum data centre design.
We compare different circuits implementing distributed versions of quantum computations, using entangled pairs only, and using distributed fan-out operations (using GHZ states). We highlight the advantages of using distributed fan-out operations in terms of reductions in circuit depth and (possibly) entanglement resources. We note that distributed fan-out operations (or notably, distributed GHZ states) could be a ``primitive'' building block for distributed quantum operations in the same way as entangled pairs are, if distributed GHZ states could be realized efficiently.
Gate-based universal quantum computation is formulated in terms of two types of operations: local single-qubit gates, which are typically easily implementable, and two-qubit entangling gates, whose faithful implementation remains one of the major experimental challenges since it requires controlled interactions between individual systems. To make the most of quantum hardware it is crucial to process information in the most efficient way. One promising avenue is to use higher-dimensional systems, qudits, as the fundamental units of quantum information, in order to replace a fraction of the qubit-entangling gates with qudit-local gates. Here, we show how the complexity of multi-qubit circuits can be lowered significantly by employing qudit encodings, which we quantify by considering exemplary circuits with exactly known (multi-qubit) gate complexity. We discuss general principles for circuit compression, derive upper and lower bounds on the achievable advantage, and highlight the key role played by entanglement and the available gate set. Explicit experimental schemes for photonic as well as for trapped-ion implementations are provided and demonstrate a significant expected gain in circuit performance for both platforms.
Abstract Compiling quantum circuits to account for hardware restrictions is an essential part of the quantum computing stack. Circuit compilation allows us to adapt algorithm descriptions into a sequence of operations supported by real quantum hardware, and has the potential to significantly improve their performance when optimisation techniques are added to the process. One such optimisation technique is reducing the number of quantum gates that are needed to execute a circuit. For instance, methods for reducing the number of non-Clifford gates or CNOT gates from a circuit are an extensive research area that has gathered significant interest over the years. For certain hardware platforms such as trapped-ion quantum computers, we can leverage some of their special properties to further reduce the cost of executing a quantum circuit in them. In this work we use global interactions, such as the Global Mølmer–Sørensen (MS) gate present in trapped-ion hardware, to optimise and synthesise quantum circuits. We design and implement an algorithm that is able to compile an arbitrary quantum circuit into another circuit that uses global gates as the entangling operation, while optimising the number of global interactions needed. The algorithm is based on the ZX -calculus and uses a specialised circuit extraction routine that groups entangling gates into Global MS gates. We benchmark the algorithm in a variety of circuits, and show how it improves their performance under state-of-the-art hardware considerations in comparison to a naive algorithm and the Qiskit optimiser.
As quantum computing scales up, circuits relying on sequential two-qubit gates face severe challenges from excessive depth and decoherence. In trapped-ion systems, global entangling gates offer a highly parallel alternative but are hindered by complex numerical optimization. We propose an efficient numerical framework for piecewise-constant amplitude-modulated global gates. Based on the Mølmer-Sørensen protocol, we utilize null-space projection for linear constraints of spin-motion coupling and tangent-space gradient descent to minimize laser power, while achieving high-order robustness against frequency drifts. At the application level, we identify a structural correspondence between hardware-native global interactions and Pauli strings in Hamiltonian simulation and propose an efficient compilation scheme. By reducing common physical models to fundamental X X interactions and formulating interaction graph partitioning as a Set Cover problem, we leverage global gates to significantly optimize the compilation process. Explicit pulse-level benchmarks further show that, for the tested weighted interaction graphs, the reduction in entangling-gate count can translate into a substantial reduction in total entangling duration. These results demonstrate that integrating hardware-native operations with tailored compilation strategies can substantially reduce circuit overhead, providing a practical roadmap for the codesign of near-term quantum simulators.
In noisy intermediate-scale quantum computing, the limited scalability of a single quantum processing unit (QPU) can be extended through distributed quantum computing (DQC), in which one can implement global operations over two QPUs by entanglement-assisted local operations and classical communication. To facilitate this type of DQC in experiments, we need an entanglement-efficient protocol. To this end, we extend the protocol in [Eisert et. al., PRA, 62:052317(2000)] implementing each nonlocal controlled-unitary gate locally with one maximally entangled pair to a packing protocol, which can pack multiple nonlocal controlled-unitary gates locally using one maximally entangled pair. In particular, two types of packing processes are introduced as the building blocks, namely the distributing processes and embedding processes. Each distributing process distributes corresponding gates locally with one entangled pair. The efficiency of entanglement is then enhanced by embedding processes, which merge two non-sequential distributing processes and hence save the entanglement cost. We show that the structure of distributability and embeddability of a quantum circuit can be fully represented by the corresponding packing graphs and conflict graphs. Based on these graphs, we derive heuristic algorithms for finding an entanglement-efficient packing of distributing processes for a given quantum circuit to be implemented by two parties. These algorithms can determine the required number of local auxiliary qubits in the DQC. We apply these algorithms for bipartite DQC of unitary coupled-cluster circuits and find a significant reduction of entanglement cost through embeddings. This method can determine a constructive upper bound on the entanglement cost for the DQC of quantum circuits.
The paradigm behind digital quantum computing inherits the idea of using binary information processing. Nature in fact gives much more rich structures of physical objects that can be used for encoding information, which is especially interesting in the quantum-mechanical domain. In this Colloquium several ideas are reviewed that indicate how multilevel quantum systems, also known as qudits, can be used for efficient realization of quantum algorithms, which are represented via standard qubit circuits. The focus in the Colloquium is on techniques for leveraging qudits for simplifying decomposition of multiqubit gates and for compressing quantum information by encoding multiple qubits in a single qudit. As discussed in the Colloquium, these approaches can be efficiently combined. This allows a reduction in the number of entangling (two-body) operations and the number of quantum information carriers used compared to straightforward qubit realizations. These theoretical schemes can be implemented with quantum computing platforms of various natures, such as trapped ions, neutral atoms, superconducting junctions, quantum light, spin systems, and molecules. The Colloquium concludes by summarizing a set of open problems whose resolution will be an important further step toward employing universal qudit-based processors for running qubit algorithms.