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arXiv:2607.27971

Optimizing Memory Efficiency and Index Ordering to Simulate Quantum Circuits Using Tensor Decision Diagrams

Vicente López-Oliva, José Manuel Badía Contelles, Maria Isabel Castillo Catalán

Published Jul 30, 2026• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Combining Tensor Networks (TNs) and Decision Diagrams (DDs) provides a high-performance framework for the exact simulation of quantum circuits on classical computers by exploiting structural redundancies and topological entanglement. However, improving the scalability of hybrid tools such as the Fast Tensor Decision Diagram (FTDD) requires addressing strict memory growth constraints and complex node management during tensor contractions. In this paper, we propose a hardware-aware architectural optimization of the FTDD framework, with two main contributions: first, we overhaul the internal memory management through a fixed-footprint memory model, strict node lifecycle tracking, and a systematic evaluation of table-sizing policies (exponential, static, and hybrid) to reduce allocation overhead and control memory growth; second, we introduce Path, a new index-ordering heuristic guided by the contraction path, and conduct a comprehensive study of variable index-ordering strategies, an important factor for DD compression. By comparing the original alphanumeric ordering, RCM, and our Path heuristic across diverse circuit topologies, we show that index permutation strongly affects node sharing and diagram density. Experimental evaluation confirms that our optimized FTDD engine bounds memory consumption under structured quantum workloads, enabling stable execution of circuits such as QFT with up to 100 qubits. Furthermore, we systematically characterize execution time, memory footprint, and topological trade-offs across diverse quantum benchmarks.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2607.27971

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Classical simulation remains essential for the development of quantum algorithms; however, traditional matrix-based methods struggle with scalability. While the Fast Tensor Decision Diagram (FTDD) framework offers a hybrid approach by combining the strengths of Tensor Networks and Decision Diagrams (DDs) for memory-efficient simulation, its core operations are often bottlenecked by memory management structures. Our primary motivation is to address the high computational and spatial cost associated with the hash tables, as well as to simplify the complexity of the simulation workflow. This work introduces systematic, low-level optimizations to the framework. Our main contribution is the enhancement of the memory management layer for the internal tables. We implemented a node reuse mechanism and designed a controlled strategy for hash table growth. These improvements minimize the memory footprint and reduce the costly hashing overhead inherent in DD-based simulators. We performed a thorough experimental analysis using a diverse set of quantum circuits, which were characterized by well-established metrics. Experimental results demonstrate that our enhancements improve the tool's performance and scalability. Notably, these advancements enable the simulation of complex circuits, such as Quantum Fourier Transform, with hundreds of qubits, on a standard server with 2-Tb of memory.
Simulating quantum circuits on classical computers is a notoriously hard, yet increasingly important task for the development and testing of quantum algorithms. In order to alleviate this inherent complexity, efficient data structures and methods, such as tensor networks and decision diagrams, have been proposed. However, their efficiency heavily depends on the order in which the individual computations are performed. For tensor networks, the order is defined by so-called contraction plans and a plethora of methods has been developed to determine suitable plans. On the other hand, simulation based on decision diagrams is mostly conducted in a straight-forward, i.e., sequential, fashion thus far. In this work, we study the importance of the path that is chosen when simulating quantum circuits using decision diagrams and show, conceptually and experimentally, that choosing the right simulation path can make a vast difference in the efficiency of classical simulations using decision diagrams. We propose an open-source framework (available at github.com/cda-tum/ddsim) that not only allows to investigate of dedicated simulation paths but also to reuse of existing findings, e.g., obtained from determining contraction plans for tensor networks. Experimental evaluations show that translating strategies from the domain of tensor networks may yield speedups of several factors compared to the state of the art. Furthermore, we design a dedicated simulation path heuristic that allows to improve the performance even further—frequently yielding speedups of several orders of magnitude. Finally, we provide an extensive discussion on what can be learned from tensor networks and what cannot.
Abstract Quantum computing holds the potential to solve complex problems currently beyond the capabilities of classical computers by exploiting the principles of quantum mechanics. However, due to the immaturity of such computers and the inability to know the state of the circuit during execution, efficient quantum simulators on classical computers are needed. This paper compares different methods for the contraction of quantum circuits represented as tensor networks. Tensor Decision Diagrams (TDD) are used to implement two contraction ordering methods that exploit the structure of the circuits to reduce temporal and spatial costs. Experimental results show that these methods improve other well established approaches and that they are faster that other well-known simulation tools based on other circuit representations. In addition, an analysis of different implementations of the same quantum algorithm highlights the impact of gate sets on contraction efficiency.
Classical simulation is essential in quantum algorithm development and quantum device verification. With the increasing complexity and diversity of quantum circuit structures, existing classical simulation algorithms need to be improved and extended. In this work, we propose novel strategies for tensor network contraction based simulator on Sunway architecture. Our approach addresses three main aspects: complexity, computational paradigms and fine-grained optimization. Data reuse schemes are designed to reduce floating-point operations, and memory organization techniques are employed to eliminate slicing overhead while maintaining parallelism. Step fusion strategy is extended by multi-core cooperation to improve the data locality and computation intensity. Fine-grained optimizations, such as in-kernel vectorized permutations, and split-K operators, are developed as well to address the challenges in new hotspot distribution and topological structure. These innovations can accelerate the simulation of the Zuchongzhi-60-24 by more than 10 times, using more than 1024 Sunway nodes (399,360 cores). Our work demonstrates the potential for enabling efficient classical simulation of increasingly complex quantum circuits.
Classical simulation remains essential for developing and validating quantum algorithms, but its cost grows rapidly with circuit size. Tensor-network contraction can reduce this cost by exploiting circuit structure, although its efficiency depends strongly on the chosen contraction plan. On GPUs, plans with similar theoretical complexity may perform very differently because execution also depends on parallelism, reduction structure, memory traffic, and contraction geometry. We present a learning-to-rank framework for selecting efficient contraction plans before executing them. Each plan is represented by structural features derived directly from its sequence of pairwise contractions, and gradient-boosted rankers are trained from GPU measurements using listwise and pairwise objectives. We evaluate the resulting models on diverse circuit families, using separate in-distribution and circuit-family-shift test sets, and compare them with random and MinFill-based baselines. The learned rankers generally identify better plans, with the listwise model providing the strongest overall decision quality. We also study backend shift by comparing empirical plan orderings on two GPU architectures and evaluating the source-trained models on the second device without retraining. The rankings remain substantially, though not perfectly, stable across GPUs, and the models retain useful decision quality. These results support Learning to Rank as a practical way to reduce contraction-plan search, while showing that performance remains partly backend dependent.
The classical simulation of quantum circuits is essential in the development and testing of quantum algorithms. Methods based on tensor networks or decision diagrams have proven to alleviate the inevitable exponential growth of the underlying complexity in many cases. But the complexity of these methods is very sensitive to so-called contraction plans or simulation paths, respectively, which define the order in which respective operations are applied. While, for tensor networks, a plethora of strategies has been developed, simulation based on decision diagrams is mostly conducted in a straight-forward fashion thus far. In this work, we envision a flow that allows to translate strategies from the domain of tensor networks to decision diagrams. Preliminary results indicate that a substantial advantage may be gained by employing suitable simulation paths-motivating a thorough consideration.