As quantum technologies continue to advance, the proliferation of hardware architectures with diverse capabilities and limitations has underscored the importance of benchmarking as a tool to compare performance across platforms. Achieving fair, scalable and consistent evaluations is a key open problem in quantum computing, particularly in the pre-fault-tolerant era. To address this challenge, we introduce QuSquare, a quality-oriented benchmark suite designed to provide a scalable, fair, reproducible, and well-defined framework for assessing the performance of quantum devices across hardware architectures. QuSquare consists of four benchmark tests that evaluate quantum hardware performance at both the system and application levels: Partial Clifford Randomized, Multipartite Entanglement, Transverse Field Ising Model (TFIM) Hamiltonian Simulation, and Data Re-Uploading Quantum Neural Network (QNN). Together, these benchmarks offer an integral, hardware-agnostic, and impartial methodology to quantify the quality and capabilities of current quantum computers, supporting fair cross-platform comparisons and fostering the development of future performance standards.
As quantum technologies continue to advance, the proliferation of hardware architectures with diverse capabilities and limitations has underscored the importance of benchmarking as a tool to compare performance across platforms. Achieving fair, scalable and consistent evaluations is a key open problem in quantum computing, particularly in the pre-fault-tolerant era. To address this challenge, we introduce QuSquare, a quality-oriented benchmark suite designed to provide a scalable, fair, reproducible, and well-defined framework for assessing the performance of quantum devices across hardware architectures. QuSquare consists of four benchmark tests that evaluate quantum hardware performance at both the system and application levels: Partial Clifford Randomized, Multipartite Entanglement, Transverse Field Ising Model (TFIM) Hamiltonian Simulation, and Data Re-Uploading Quantum Neural Network (QNN). Together, these benchmarks offer an integral, hardware-agnostic, and impartial methodology to quantify the quality and capabilities of current quantum computers, supporting fair cross-platform comparisons and fostering the development of future performance standards.
As quantum processors continue to scale in size and complexity, the need for well-defined, reproducible, and technology-agnostic performance metrics becomes increasingly critical. Here we present a suite of scalable quantum computing benchmarks developed as key performance indicators (KPIs) within the EU Quantum Flagship. These proposed benchmarks are designed to assess holistic system performance rather than isolated components, and to remain applicable across both noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices and future fault-tolerant architectures. We introduce four core benchmarks addressing complementary aspects of quantum computing capability: large multi-qubit circuit execution via a Clifford Volume benchmark, scalable multipartite entanglement generation through GHZ-state preparation, a benchmark based on the application of Shor's period-finding subroutine to simple functions, and a protocol quantifying the benefit of quantum error correction using Bell states. Each benchmark is accompanied by clearly specified protocols, reporting standards, and scalable evaluation methods. Together, these KPIs provide a coherent framework for transparent and fair performance assessment across quantum hardware platforms and for tracking progress late-NISQ toward early fault-tolerant quantum computation.
The fragmented landscape of quantum computer benchmarks, characterized by system-specific tools and inconsistent evaluation methodologies, hinders reliable cross-platform performance assessment. We introduce Metriq, an open-source collaborative platform for reproducible cross-platform quantum benchmarking that integrates benchmark definition and execution, data collection, and public presentation into a unified workflow. The Metriq benchmark suite spans both system-level metrics that characterize fundamental device properties such as entanglement quality, gate performance, and circuit speed, as well as application-inspired protocols that assess performance on quantum machine learning, optimization, and quantum simulation tasks. Benchmarks are chosen to scale with processor size, and the framework incorporates cost and resource estimation to support practical evaluation. Using Metriq, we collect and publicly release results from more than ten quantum computers across multiple hardware vendors, enabling systematic cross-platform comparison. The resulting curated dataset also reveals the practical strengths and limitations of individual benchmarks, creating a feedback loop that informs the ongoing refinement of the suite. To summarize performance across the benchmark suite, we introduce the Metriq Score, a composite index aggregating benchmark outcomes. We further present cross-benchmark analyses enabled by the shared dataset and their correlations with hardware calibration metrics. Through open development and data sharing, Metriq provides a practical foundation for reproducible benchmarking of quantum computers as hardware and benchmarking methods continue to evolve.
In the near-term "NISQ"-era of noisy, intermediate-scale, quantum hardware and beyond, reliably determining the quality of quantum devices becomes increasingly important: users need to be able to compare them with one another, and make an estimate whether they are capable of performing a given task ahead of time. In this work, we develop and release an advanced quantum benchmarking framework in order to help assess the state of the art of current quantum devices. Our testing framework measures the performance of universal quantum devices in a hardware-agnostic way, with metrics that are aimed to facilitate an intuitive understanding of which device is likely to outperform others on a given task. This is achieved through six structured tests that allow for an immediate, visual assessment of how devices compare. Each test is designed with scalability in mind, making this framework not only suitable for testing the performance of present-day quantum devices, but also of those released in the foreseeable future. The series of tests are motivated by real-life scenarios, and therefore emphasise the interplay between various relevant characteristics of quantum devices, such as qubit count, connectivity, and gate and measurement fidelity. We present the benchmark results of twenty-one different quantum devices from IBM, Rigetti and IonQ.
As quantum computing systems continue to mature, there is an increasing need for benchmarking methodologies that capture performance in terms of meaningful, application-level metrics. In this work, we present a scalable framework for application-level quantum benchmarking that is designed to support internal system evaluation and cross-platform comparison across technology providers. Our framework is guided by a set of core principles, including measurability, simplicity, scalability, and extensibility. We present 13 benchmark families that reflect realistic workloads across multiple domains. This enables the systematic evaluation of the quality of solutions, the total execution time, total used energy, as well as Time-to-Solution. The benchmarks are designed to be reproducible, interpretable across stakeholder groups, and adaptable to evolving system capabilities. The framework aims to bridge the gap between low-level performance metrics and real-world value, providing a unified approach to assessing quantum systems. The resulting benchmarks support development and validation and contribute to the foundation of industry-wide benchmarking standards.
Quantum computing has progressed from early demonstrations across superconducting, trapped ion, photonic, and spin-based platforms to increasingly integrated systems. However, transitioning from the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era to robust, fault tolerant implementations remain a central challenge. This paper presents a systematic review and synthesis of practical quantum computing, encompassing experimental advances, integrated photonics, error correction breakthroughs, software stack evolution, benchmarking practices, algorithmic readiness, and socio-technical dimensions. We critically assess current limitations and highlight emerging directions, including integrated photonic modules with high fidelity interconnects, real time decoders for surface code logical qubits, and hardware aware compiler strategies. Our analysis is grounded in peer-reviewed experimental data and model-based evaluations. Key findings include demonstrated logical error suppression via increased code distance, scalable photonic module prototypes, and refined resource estimates for cryptanalytic and simulation tasks. This paper concludes with a structured research agenda for 2025–2030, proposing four priority thrusts such as hardware QEC co design, reproducible cross platform benchmarking, modular/distributed architectures, and quantum networking with governance frameworks. This evidence based roadmap aims to align researchers and practitioners toward actionable milestones on the path to practical quantum computing.
As quantum computing advances toward the late-NISQ and early fault-tolerant eras, scalable and platform-independent benchmarks are essential for quantifying computational capacity in a classically verifiable manner. We introduce two volumetric benchmarks, Clifford Volume and Free Fermion Volume, that assess quantum hardware by testing the execution of random Clifford and free fermion operations. These two groups of unitaries possess a combination of properties that make them ideal for benchmarking: (i) each is individually efficient to simulate classically, enabling verification at scale; (ii) together they form a universal gate set; (iii) they serve as essential algorithmic primitives in practical applications (including shadow tomography and quantum chemistry); and (iv) their definitions are formulated abstractly, without explicit reference to hardware-specific features such as qubit connectivity or native gate sets. This framework thus enables scalable and fair cross-platform comparisons and tracks meaningful computational advancement. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of these benchmarks through extensive numerical simulations across realistic noise parameters and through experimental validation on Quantinuum's H2-1 trapped-ion quantum computer, which achieves a Clifford Volume of 34.