Quantum computing is a promising paradigm for problems that are challenging for classical machines, but realizing that promise requires far more qubits than a single processor can offer. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) scales out by connecting multiple quantum processing units (QPUs), at the cost of making entanglement the scarce resource: every remote gate consumes a Bell pair, and inter-QPU links generate Bell pairs at finite rates orders of magnitude slower than local gates. Since quantum programs are executed repeatedly, this rate bounds how fast shots complete and thus how fast results are obtained. Existing DQC compilers emit a single implementation per circuit, so throughput is capped by its busiest link while other links stay idle. We observe that alternative compilations of the same circuit are logically equivalent yet stress different links; executing them concurrently and pooling their samples converts idle Bell pairs into additional shots. We formulate the joint selection of compilations and allocation of shots under per-link Bell-pair capacities as Candidate-Constrained Max-Shot Allocation (CMA), prove it NP-hard, and solve it with a dynamic program and its approximate variant AppDP, a compact MILP, and a greedy heuristic Effi. In simulation on six-QPU networks, multi-compilation raises throughput by 2-4.5* over the single compilation and correspondingly improves output fidelity under equal Bell-pair budgets. On hardware, it increases measured fidelity by up to 93% and reaches the single-compilation fidelity in up to 10* less time. Scaling to 36 QPUs and 144-qubit circuits, MILP improves throughput over the single compilation by 76.8% on average across 48 configurations while Effi allocates in milliseconds.
Quantum computing is a promising paradigm for problems that are challenging for classical machines, but realizing that promise requires far more qubits than a single processor can offer. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) scales out by connecting multiple quantum processing units (QPUs), at the cost of making entanglement the scarce resource: every remote gate consumes a Bell pair, and inter-QPU links generate Bell pairs at finite rates orders of magnitude slower than local gates. Since quantum programs are executed repeatedly, this rate bounds how fast shots complete and thus how fast results are obtained. Existing DQC compilers emit a single implementation per circuit, so throughput is capped by its busiest link while other links stay idle. We observe that alternative compilations of the same circuit are logically equivalent yet stress different links; executing them concurrently and pooling their samples converts idle Bell pairs into additional shots. We formulate the joint selection of compilations and allocation of shots under per-link Bell-pair capacities as Candidate-Constrained Max-Shot Allocation (CMA), prove it NP-hard, and solve it with a dynamic program and its approximate variant AppDP, a compact MILP, and a greedy heuristic Effi. In simulation on six-QPU networks, multi-compilation raises throughput by 2-4.5* over the single compilation and correspondingly improves output fidelity under equal Bell-pair budgets. On hardware, it increases measured fidelity by up to 93% and reaches the single-compilation fidelity in up to 10* less time. Scaling to 36 QPUs and 144-qubit circuits, MILP improves throughput over the single compilation by 76.8% on average across 48 configurations while Effi allocates in milliseconds.
In recent years, advances in quantum computing have been driven by substantial improvements in both the number and quality of qubits. As the field progresses, there is growing interest in interconnecting quantum systems to enable scalable computation through Distributed Quantum Computing (DQC) architectures. Consider a distributed quantum application executed across multiple Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) within a quantum data center, where remote gates require establishing entanglement between different QPUs. The creation of such end-to-end entanglement can lead to network congestion and resource contention. To address these challenges, we propose a resource management framework that maximizes fidelity-guaranteed throughput while satisfying dependency constraints. We first formulate the problem as a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model to provide a performance benchmark. Building on this, we develop efficient approximate scheduling algorithms that achieve performance comparable to the optimization solver. Although a trade-off exists between execution time and network throughput, simulation results demonstrate that one of the proposed strategies, Weighted Group Least Resource First (WGLRF), closely approximates the solver’s performance across most scenarios. These findings suggest that the lightweight strategy is sufficient for current DQC settings, offering a practical solution for managing remote-gate resource contention in distributed quantum circuits and improving overall system performance.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) has emerged as a promising approach to overcome the scalability limitations of monolithic quantum processors in terms of computational capability. However, realising the full potential of DQC requires effective resource management and circuit scheduling. This involves efficiently assigning each circuit to a subset of quantum processing units (QPUs), based on factors such as their computational power and connectivity. In heterogeneous DQC networks with arbitrary connectivity topologies and non-identical QPUs, this becomes a complex challenge. This paper addresses resource management and circuit scheduling in such settings, with a focus on computing resource allocation in a quantum data centre. We propose circuit scheduling algorithms based on Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP). Our MILP model accounts for errors arising from inter-QPU communication. In particular, the proposed schemes consider key factors, including network topology, QPU capacities, and quantum circuit structure, to make efficient scheduling and allocation decisions. Simulation results demonstrate that our proposed algorithms significantly improve circuit execution time and scheduling efficiency (measured by makespan and throughput), while also reducing inter-QPU communication overhead, compared to baseline strategies. This work provides valuable insights into resource management strategies for scalable and heterogeneous DQC systems.
Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is a promising technique for scaling up quantum systems. While significant progress has been made in DQC for quantum circuit models, there exists much less research on DQC for measurement-based quantum computing (MBQC), which is a universal quantum computing model that is essentially different from the circuit model and particularly well-suited to photonic quantum platforms. In this paper, we propose DC-MBQC, the first distributed quantum compilation framework tailored for MBQC. We identify and address two key challenges in enabling DQC for MBQC. First, for task allocation among quantum processing units (QPUs), we develop an adaptive graph partitioning algorithm that preserves the structure of the graph state while balancing the workload across QPUs. Second, for inter-QPU communication, we introduce the layer scheduling problem and propose an algorithm to solve it. Regrading realistic hardware requirements, we optimize the execution time of running quantum programs and the corresponding required photon lifetime to avoid fatal failures caused by photon loss. Our experiments demonstrate a 7.46× improvement on required photon lifetime and 6.82× speedup with 8 fully-connected QPUs, which further confirm the advantage of distributed quantum computing in photonic systems. The source code is publicly available at https://github.com/qfcwj/DC-MBQC.
The main bottleneck for distributed quantum computing is the rate at which entanglement is produced between quantum processing units (QPUs). In this work, we prove that multiple QPUs connected through slow interconnects can outperform a monolithic architecture made with a single QPU. We consider a distributed quantum computing model with the following assumptions: (1) each QPU is linked to only two other QPUs, (2) each link produces only one Bell pair at a time, (3) the time to generate a Bell pair is τe times longer than the gate time. We propose a distributed version of the CliNR partial error correction scheme respecting these constraints and we show through circuit level simulations that, even if the entanglement generation time τe is up to five times longer than the gate time, distributed CliNR can achieve simultaneously a lower logical error rate and a shorter depth than both the direct implementation and the monolithic CliNR implementation of random Clifford circuits. In the asymptotic regime, we relax assumption (2) and we prove that links producing O(t/lnt) Bell pairs in parallel, where t is the number of QPUs, is sufficient to avoid stalling distributed CliNR, independently of the number of qubits per QPU. This demonstrates the potential of distributed CliNR for near-term multi-QPU devices. Moreover, we envision a distributed quantum superiority experiment based on the conjugated Clifford circuits of Bouland, Fitzsimons and Koh implemented with distributed CliNR.
Abstract Distributed quantum computing requires compiler infrastructure capable of partitioning quantum circuits across multiple quantum processing units (QPUs) and synthesizing entanglement-assisted communication channels. Existing quantum compilers—including Qiskit, t|ket⟩, and BQSKit—operate on single-QPU execution models and lack native support for multi-QPU intermediate representations. We present DQC, an MLIR-based distributed quantum compiler featuring a custom dqc dialect and a five-pass compilation pipeline: (1) interaction-graph-based qubit partitioning with weighted edge-cut minimization, (2) TeleGate synthesis replacing cross-QPU gates with EPR pair allocations and quantum teleportation sequences, (3) greedy operation reordering for communication pre-staging, (4) MPI dialect lowering for distributed runtime abstraction, and (5) LLVM IR emission targeting a quantum simulation runtime. We evaluate DQC on a distributed 4-qubit Quantum Fourier Transform and four additional benchmarks, demonstrating correct multi-QPU execution with verified quantum state output. To our knowledge, DQC is the first open-source MLIR-native compiler infrastructure targeting distributed quantum circuit execution with end-to-end compilation from high-level quantum IR to executable LLVM IR.
In many practical applications, quantum algorithms require several qubits, significantly more than those available with current noisy intermediate-scale quantum processors. Distributed quantum computing (DQC) is considered a scalable approach to increasing the number of available qubits for computational tasks. In the DQC setting, a quantum compiler must find the best partitioning for the quantum algorithm and then perform smart non-local operations scheduling to optimize the consumption of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) pairs. In this work, the focus is on minimizing the use of EPR pairs when the circuit structure allows for multiple non-local gates to utilize a single TeleGate operation. This is achieved by using a greedy algorithm that explores the circuit and groups together the gates that could share an EPR pair while also changing the order of commutative gates when necessary. With this preliminary pass, the compiled circuits show reduced depth and EPR usage. Since the quality of each EPR pair quickly deteriorates, the number of non-local gates using the same EPR pair should also be bounded. This means that, depending on the features of the target quantum network, the user can achieve different levels of optimization. Here, it is shown that this approach brings benefits even while assuming a low EPR pair lifetime.