As quantum computers continue to increase in size and topological complexity, benchmarking crosstalk becomes more complex and resource-intensive. This limits the ability to obtain relevant crosstalk metrics for applications such as error mitigation, quantum computer security, and circuit transpilation. There applications benefit from accessible metrics on how each gate contributes to crosstalk. However, crosstalk metrics are rarely provided by quantum computer providers and can be expensive to obtain on modern large NISQ devices. In this work, we propose CrossBench, a customizable system that generates crosstalk benchmarks for finitely large NISQ devices with arbitrary topologies. CrossBench uses a custom graph labeling algorithm to generate crosstalk benchmarks for a given quantum topology and gate set. These benchmarks can be used to estimate the average contribution of each gate's crosstalk to qubit error rates. We evaluate the effectiveness of CrossBench by generating and running benchmarks on multiple IBM quantum computers with different topologies. Our results show that CrossBench can identify gates that introduce significant crosstalk across all tested devices, with strong statistical significance (p < 0.05). These promising results show that CrossBench can give simple and accessible crosstalk benchmarks for modern NISQ systems.
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7 pages, 7 figures. Under review at an IEEE conference
As quantum computers continue to increase in size and topological complexity, benchmarking crosstalk becomes more complex and resource-intensive. This limits the ability to obtain relevant crosstalk metrics for applications such as error mitigation, quantum computer security, and circuit transpilation. There applications benefit from accessible metrics on how each gate contributes to crosstalk. However, crosstalk metrics are rarely provided by quantum computer providers and can be expensive to obtain on modern large NISQ devices. In this work, we propose CrossBench, a customizable system that generates crosstalk benchmarks for finitely large NISQ devices with arbitrary topologies. CrossBench uses a custom graph labeling algorithm to generate crosstalk benchmarks for a given quantum topology and gate set. These benchmarks can be used to estimate the average contribution of each gate's crosstalk to qubit error rates. We evaluate the effectiveness of CrossBench by generating and running benchmarks on multiple IBM quantum computers with different topologies. Our results show that CrossBench can identify gates that introduce significant crosstalk across all tested devices, with strong statistical significance (p < 0.05). These promising results show that CrossBench can give simple and accessible crosstalk benchmarks for modern NISQ systems.
Current advancements in technology have focused the attention of the quantum computing community toward exploring the potential of near-term devices whose computing power surpasses that of classical computers in practical applications. An unresolved central question revolves around whether the inherent noise in these devices can be overcome or whether any potential quantum advantage would be limited. There is no doubt that crosstalk is one of the main sources of noise in noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) systems, and it poses a fundamental challenge to hardware designs. Crosstalk between parallel instructions can corrupt quantum states and cause incorrect program execution. In this study, we present a necessary analysis of the crosstalk error effect on NISQ devices. Our approach is extremely straightforward and practical to estimate the crosstalk error of various multi-qubit devices. In particular, we combine the randomized benchmarking (RB) and simultaneous randomized benchmarking (SRB) protocol to estimate the crosstalk error from the correlation controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. We demonstrate this protocol experimentally on 5-, 7-, \& 16-qubit devices. Our results demonstrate the crosstalk error model of three different IBM quantum devices over the experimental week and compare the error variation against the machine, number of qubits, quantum volume, processor, and topology. We then confirm the improvement in the circuit fidelity on different benchmarks by up to 3.06x via inserting an instruction barrier, as compared with an IBM quantum noisy device which offers near-optimal crosstalk mitigation in practice. Finally, we discuss the current system limitation, its tradeoff on fidelity and depth, noise beyond the NISQ system, and mitigation opportunities to ensure that the quantum operation can perform its quantum magic undisturbed.
The benchmark of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) computers plays a major role in the research and development of quantum devices and algorithms. Our study aims to investigate a single metric of benchmarking for the Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum device. We use state-of-the-art applications to generate a device-score according to our proposed formula. Our study utilizes Quantum Volume (QV) to determine the qubit circuit size for each device. Furthermore, we utilize SupermarQ to determine each application's benchmark score, utilizing their 5 feature vectors to indicate the circuit performance, and applying their circuit optimization techniques to configure the transpiler. Our experiment shows that device-score of the simulated IBM backend are directly correlated to Quantum Volume. However, it should be noted that topology and gate error are also embedded in the benchmark scores of the applications. Because of this, our study introduces the device-score, a single number metric that provides a more precise scale with the assistance of Quantum Volume and SupermarQ.
Abstract In this report, we explore benchmarking gate-based quantum devices based on the certification of quantum measurements, which can be viewed as an extension of quantum hypothesis testing. Here, we are interested in a binary certification scheme in which the null and alternative hypotheses are qubit von Neumann measurements. The certification procedure can be used to evaluate the accuracy of Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum devices. To support this methodology, we contribute benchmarks to PyQBench, an open-source Python library for benchmarking gate-based quantum computers. We provide a user-friendly command-line interface for certifying measurements from the Fourier family. For more advanced scenarios, PyQBench can also be used as a Python library, allowing users to define custom measurement schemes and error models. The latest version of PyQBench is designed to support IBM Q devices through integration with the Qiskit library, enabling seamless benchmarking on real quantum hardware. By providing flexible benchmarking tools, PyQBench addresses the critical need for reliable performance metrics in the NISQ era, contributing to the development of error mitigation techniques and the verification of quantum measurement fidelity.
The noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) computers suffer from unwanted coupling across qubits referred to as crosstalk. Existing literature largely ignores the crosstalk effects which can introduce significant error in circuit optimization. In this work, we present a crosstalk modeling analysis framework for near-term quantum computers after extracting the error-rates experimentally. Our analysis reveals that crosstalk can be of the same order of gate error which is considered a dominant error in NISQ devices. We also propose adversarial fault injection using crosstalk in a multiprogramming environment where the victim and the adversary share the same quantum hardware. Our simulation and experimental results from IBM quantum computers demonstrated that the adversary can inject fault and launch a Denial-of-Service attack. Finally, we propose system- and device-level countermeasures.
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.
As quantum processors grow, new performance benchmarks are required to capture the full quality of the devices at scale. While quantum volume is an excellent benchmark, it focuses on the highest quality subset of the device and so is unable to indicate the average performance over a large number of connected qubits. Furthermore, it is a discrete pass/fail and so is not reflective of continuous improvements in hardware nor does it provide quantitative direction to large-scale algorithms. For example, there may be value in error mitigated Hamiltonian simulation at scale with devices unable to pass strict quantum volume tests. Here we discuss a scalable benchmark which measures the fidelity of a connecting set of two-qubit gates over N qubits by measuring gate errors using simultaneous direct randomized benchmarking in disjoint layers. Our layer fidelity can be easily related to algorithmic run time, via γ defined in Ref.\cite{berg2022probabilistic} that can be used to estimate the number of circuits required for error mitigation. The protocol is efficient and obtains all the pair rates in the layered structure. Compared to regular (isolated) RB this approach is sensitive to crosstalk. As an example we measure a N=80(100) qubit layer fidelity on a 127 qubit fixed-coupling "Eagle" processor (ibm\_sherbrooke) of 0.26(0.19) and on the 133 qubit tunable-coupling "Heron" processor (ibm\_montecarlo) of 0.61(0.26). This can easily be expressed as a layer size independent quantity, error per layered gate (EPLG), which is here 1.7×10−2(1.7×10−2) for ibm\_sherbrooke and 6.2×10−3(1.2×10−2) for ibm\_montecarlo.