Practical HPCQC Integration with QDMI: A Real-Hardware Case Study with IQM Systems
Lukas Burgholzer, Marcel Walter, Patrick Hopf, Álvaro Caride-Tabarés Sánchez, Teemu Mattsson, Bernd Hoffmann, Noora Färkkilä, Daniel Bulmash, Robert Wille, Eric Mansfield
quant-phcs.ETSubmitted Apr 21, 2026• Announced Apr 23, 2026• 0 citations
Quantum computers are moving into HPC centers, and the main challenge is now integration rather than pure hardware access. Many current software paths still depend on vendor-specific adapter chains between user SDKs, schedulers, and backend APIs. This pattern makes operations more complex than necessary and slows the transition from pilots to production workflows. We present a practical integration path centered on the Quantum Device Management Interface (QDMI). Using IQM superconducting systems as a hardware case study, we implement an IQM-backed QDMI layer and connect it to two software layers that HPC centers working with quantum computers already care about: Slurm-based job execution and Qiskit-facing user workflows. The implementation is publicly available at https://github.com/iqm-finland/QDMI-on-IQM. The key message is simple: integrating quantum hardware into HPC does not have to be a bespoke engineering effort for each backend. Once the software-hardware boundary is standardized, large parts of the stack become reusable across providers and deployment styles. Our results do not claim that standardization eliminates all HPCQC challenges. They show that this specific boundary can already be standardized today in a way that is practical for users, operators, and vendors.
Quantum computers are moving into HPC centers, and the main challenge is now integration rather than pure hardware access. Many current software paths still depend on vendor-specific adapter chains between user SDKs, schedulers, and backend APIs. This pattern makes operations more complex than necessary and slows the transition from pilots to production workflows. We present a practical integration path centered on the Quantum Device Management Interface (QDMI). Using IQM superconducting systems as a hardware case study, we implement an IQM-backed QDMI layer and connect it to two software layers that HPC centers working with quantum computers already care about: Slurm-based job execution and Qiskit-facing user workflows. The implementation is publicly available at https://github.com/iqm-finland/QDMI-on-IQM. The key message is simple: integrating quantum hardware into HPC does not have to be a bespoke engineering effort for each backend. Once the software-hardware boundary is standardized, large parts of the stack become reusable across providers and deployment styles. Our results do not claim that standardization eliminates all HPCQC challenges. They show that this specific boundary can already be standardized today in a way that is practical for users, operators, and vendors.
Quantum computing is a promising technology that requires a sophisticated software stack to connect end users to the wide range of possible quantum backends. However, current software tools are usually hard-coded for single platforms and lack a dynamic interface that can automatically retrieve and adapt to changing physical characteristics and constraints of different platforms. With new hardware platforms frequently introduced and their performance changing on a daily basis, this constitutes a serious limitation. In this paper, we show-case a concept and a prototypical realization of an interface, called the Quantum Device Management Interface (QDMI), that addresses this problem by explicitly connecting the software and hardware developers, mediating between their competing interests. QDMI allows hardware platforms to provide their physical characteristics in a standardized way, and software tools to query that data to guide the compilation process accordingly. This enables software tools to automatically adapt to different platforms and to optimize the compilation process for the specific hardware constraints. QDMI is a central part of the Munich Quantum Software Stack (MQSS)-a sophisticated software stack to connect end users to the wide range of possible quantum backends. QDMI is publicly available as open source at https://github.com/Munich-Quantum-Software-Stack/QDMI.
With an increasingly diverse portfolio of quantum backends, the adoption of standardized interfaces has become a key prerequisite for scalable access and interoperability within quantum software stacks. The Quantum Device Management Interface (QDMI) addresses this challenge and is emerging as one of the de facto standards for hardware abstraction, enabling the unified management not only of individual Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) but also of complete full-stack cloud services. This paper presents a case study demonstrating the integration of QDMI with Amazon Braket, a quantum computing cloud service that provides a single access point to a wide range of hardware technologies. By treating the cloud service itself as a unified device, the proposed implementation enables management of the complete task lifecycle - ranging from authentication and circuit submission to result retrieval - across Braket's heterogeneous set of simulators and hardware backends. We detail the engineering insights gained from this integration and present a hands-on example workflow, ultimately paving the way for integrated access to cloud-hosted quantum resources from QDMI-enabled software stacks.
Quantum computers are making their way into High Performance Computing (HPC) centers as next-generation accelerators. Due to their physical implementation as mostly large appliances in separate racks, their number in typical data centers is significantly lower than the number of nodes offloading work to them, unlike the case with GPU accelerators. As a consequence, they form large-scale disaggregated infrastructures that pose a number of integration challenges due to their diverse implementation technologies and their need to be used as a shared resource for optimal utilization. Running hybrid High Performance Computing-Quantum Computing (HPCQC) applications in HPC environments, where the quantum portion is offloaded to the quantum processing units (QPUs), requires sophisticated resource management strategies to optimize resource utilization and performance. In this paper, we present one aspect of the Munich Quantum Software Stack (MQSS) - a Just-In-Time (JIT) compilation and execution software stack for quantum and hybrid quantum-HPC workloads - beneficial for integrating disaggregated quantum accelerators into traditional HPC workflows. MQSS is centered around a series of novel contributions aimed at optimizing the compilation process while managing the disaggregated resources ensuring efficient utilization of all available quantum resources. The key stages of our JIT compilation stack involve hardware-agnostic optimizations, quantum circuit cutting – when necessary – and a novel hardware platform selection process. Included here is description of the use of the MQSS’s Quantum Device Management Interface (QDMI), a unified interface between the software stack and the quantum accelerators, which allows connection to several, potentially different, quantum resources. Our methodology demonstrates notable advancements in HPCQC integration workflows, offering researchers a powerful framework for leveraging quantum computational capabilities. Overall, our work represents a significant step towards the practical integration of disaggregated quantum devices within the realm of supercomputing, unlocking new avenues for computational exploration and discovery.
High-performance computing (HPC) has evolved over decades through multiple architectural transitions, from vector supercomputers to massively parallel CPU clusters and GPU-accelerated systems, continuously expanding the frontier of scientific discovery. With the emergence of quantum processing units (QPUs) as practical computational accelerators, a new opportunity arises to further extend this trajectory by integrating quantum and classical computing paradigms. Building on the emerging vision of Quantum Integrated High-Performance Computing (QHPC), this paper contributes a full-stack layered architecture that integrates QPUs as first-class accelerators within, not merely alongside, the classical HPC software and hardware stack, with tight, on-premise quantum-classical coupling as its defining characteristic. The architecture comprises of unified resource management, quantum-aware scheduling, hybrid workflow orchestration, middleware and programming abstraction, interconnect technologies, and a tiered execution model enabling seamless workload partitioning across classical and quantum backends. A central aspect of this architecture is a strong user requests abstraction layer that exposes heterogeneous resources through a unified job submission interface, similar in spirit to existing schedulers such as Slurm, allowing users to describe workloads in a consistent template independent of underlying compute type or location. Drawing insights from prior accelerator integration eras, we outline how QHPC can support emerging workloads in quantum chemistry, materials discovery, combinatorial optimization, and climate modeling. We conclude by highlighting open challenges in building scalable, reliable, and programmable quantum-classical infrastructures that seamlessly connect global users to heterogeneous compute resources for future quantum-classical HPC ecosystems.
High-performance computing (HPC) has evolved over decades through multiple architectural transitions, from vector supercomputers to massively parallel CPU clusters and GPU-accelerated systems, continuously expanding the frontier of scientific discovery. With the emergence of quantum processing units (QPUs) as practical computational accelerators, a new opportunity arises to further extend this trajectory by integrating quantum and classical computing paradigms. Building on the emerging vision of Quantum Integrated High-Performance Computing (QHPC), this paper contributes a full-stack layered architecture that integrates QPUs as first-class accelerators within, not merely alongside, the classical HPC software and hardware stack, with tight, on-premise quantum–classical coupling as its defining characteristic. The architecture comprises of unified resource management, quantum-aware scheduling, hybrid workflow orchestration, middleware and programming abstraction, interconnect technologies, and a tiered execution model enabling seamless workload partitioning across classical and quantum backends. A central aspect of this architecture is a strong user requests abstraction layer that exposes heterogeneous resources through a unified job submission interface, similar in spirit to existing schedulers such as Slurm, allowing users to describe workloads in a consistent template independent of underlying compute type or location. Drawing insights from prior accelerator integration eras, we outline how QHPC can support emerging workloads in quantum chemistry, materials discovery, combinatorial optimization, and climate modeling. We conclude by highlighting open challenges in building scalable, reliable, and programmable quantum–classical infrastructures that seamlessly connect global users to heterogeneous compute resources for future quantum–classical HPC ecosystems.
Quantum resources are increasingly integrated into high-performance computing (HPC) and cloud environments, but quantum high-performance computing (QHPC) software stacks remain isolated, often proprietary, full-stack solutions lacking common interfaces across runtime, resource management, orchestration, and execution layers. This paper analyzes nine production QHPC stacks and identifies common design patterns and emerging requirements, covering deployment models, application interaction patterns, SDK support, and readiness for fault-tolerant operation. The survey exposes consistent needs in runtime abstraction, resource management, interconnect semantics, and observability. Based on these findings, we propose the open quantum-HPC software ecosystem ( openQSE) reference architecture as a first step toward unifying the state-of-the-practice. openQSE defines a set of layer boundaries that allow different implementations to interoperate while preserving deployment flexibility, and is structured to support both current noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) workloads and future fault-tolerant quantum computing (FTQC) systems without changes to upper-layer application interfaces.