In recent years quantum computing has evolved from a research concept subject to reality. Companies and scientists around the world are creating physical quantum systems using different quantum technologies to advance the field. Although most of this focus is on superconducting, qubit-based implementations, recently there has been work in the development of boson-based quantum computers. The basic processing unit for these devices are continuous variable (CV), multi-photonic modes in Gaussian states. Due to the novel nature of this technology there is a lack of work on analyzing the compilation process of current photonic devices. One of the leading companies in this field developed a cross-platform Python library for simulating and executing programs on quantum photonic hardware, Strawberry Fields (SF). This paper will focus on analyzing the SF compilers, and proposing an additional compilation step that will enable future, more flexible hardware implementations.
In recent years quantum computing has evolved from a research concept subject to reality. Companies and scientists around the world are creating physical quantum systems using different quantum technologies to advance the field. Although most of this focus is on superconducting, qubit-based implementations, recently there has been work in the development of boson-based quantum computers. The basic processing unit for these devices are continuous variable (CV), multi-photonic modes in Gaussian states. Due to the novel nature of this technology there is a lack of work on analyzing the compilation process of current photonic devices. One of the leading companies in this field developed a cross-platform Python library for simulating and executing programs on quantum photonic hardware, Strawberry Fields (SF). This paper will focus on analyzing the SF compilers, and proposing an additional compilation step that will enable future, more flexible hardware implementations.
We introduce Strawberry Fields, an open-source quantum programming architecture for light-based quantum computers, and detail its key features. Built in Python, Strawberry Fields is a full-stack library for design, simulation, optimization, and quantum machine learning of continuous-variable circuits. The platform consists of three main components: (i) an API for quantum programming based on an easy-to-use language named Blackbird; (ii) a suite of three virtual quantum computer backends, built in NumPy and TensorFlow, each targeting specialized uses; and (iii) an engine which can compile Blackbird programs on various backends, including the three built-in simulators, and - in the near future - photonic quantum information processors. The library also contains examples of several paradigmatic algorithms, including teleportation, (Gaussian) boson sampling, instantaneous quantum polynomial, Hamiltonian simulation, and variational quantum circuit optimization.
This paper presents a novel approach to the K-Means clustering algorithm using continuous variable (CV) quantum computing, specifically leveraging Gaussian states on quantum photonic hardware. We implement the algorithm uti-lizing Strawberry Fields, a platform for simulating and executing photonic quantum computations. The theoretical framework integrates Gaussian state preparation, quantum interference, and homodyne detection to perform the clustering tasks. We evaluate the performance of the CV quantum K-Means algorithm on var-ious datasets, focusing on clustering accuracy and compactness compared to classical K-Means. Our findings provide valuable insights into the potential of using CV quantum methods for clustering and highlight the feasibility of CV quantum algorithms in machine learning. These results suggest promising directions for future research to further enhance their performance.
Quantum photonic simulators have emerged as indispensable tools for modeling and optimizing quantum photonic circuits, bridging the gap between theoretical models and experimental implementations. This review explores the landscape of photonic quantum simulation, focusing on the transition from Gaussian to non-Gaussian models and the computational challenges associated with simulating large-scale photonic systems. Gaussian states and operations, which enable efficient simulations through covariance matrices and phase-space representations, serve as the foundation for photonic quantum computing. However, non-Gaussian states crucial for universal quantum computation introduce significant computational complexity, requiring advanced numerical techniques such as tensor networks and high-performance GPU acceleration. We evaluate the leading photonic quantum simulators, including Strawberry Fields, Piquasso, QuTiP SimulaQron, Perceval, and QuantumOPtics.jl analyzing their capabilities in handling continuous-variable (CV) and discrete-variable (DV) quantum systems. Special attention is given to hardware-accelerated methods, including GPU-based tensor network approaches, machine learning integration, and hybrid quantum-classical workflows. Furthermore, we investigate noise modeling techniques, such as photon loss and dark counts, and their impact on simulation accuracy. As photonic quantum computing moves toward practical implementations, advancements in high-performance computing (HPC) architectures, such as tensor processing units (TPUs) and system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions, are accelerating the field. This review highlights emerging trends, challenges, and future directions for developing scalable and efficient photonic quantum simulators.
In the past few years, quantum computing has gotten more attention, and the need for efficient simulations is getting increasingly important as well. A significant branch of quantum computing is photonic quantum computing. For simulating photonic quantum circuits, Strawberry Fields is the most popular framework. In this paper, we compared it with another framework currently under development called Piquasso regarding gradient calculation time, which is an essential part of continuous-variable quantum neural networks. We present the apparent scalability of Piquasso over Strawberry Fields by storing fewer data, but leading to possible accuracy differences as a trade-off, which could motivate future work.
Quantum technologies are moving towards the development of novel hardware devices based on quantum bits (qubits). In parallel to the development of quantum devices, efficient simulation tools are needed in order to design and benchmark quantum algorithms and applications before deployment on quantum hardware. In this context, we present a first attempt to perform circuit-based quantum simulation using the just-in-time (JIT) compilation technique on multiple hardware architectures and configurations based on single-node central processing units (CPUs) and graphics processing units (GPUs). One of the major challenges in scientific code development is to balance the level of complexity between algorithms and programming techniques without losing performance or degrading code readability. In this context, we have developed qibojit : a new module for the Qibo quantum computing framework, which uses a just-in-time compilation approach through Python. We perform systematic performance benchmarks between our JIT approach and a subset of relevant publicly available libraries for quantum computing. We show that our novel approach simplifies the complex aspects of the implementation without deteriorating performance.
Continuous-variables (CV) quantum optics is a natural formalism for neural networks (NNs) due to its ability to reproduce the information processing of such trainable interconnected systems. In quantum optics, Gaussian operators induce affine mappings on the quadratures of optical modes while non-Gaussian resources (the challenging piece for physical implementation) originate the nonlinear effects, unlocking quantum analogs of an artificial neuron. This work presents a novel experimentally-feasible framework for continuous-variable quantum optical neural networks (QONNs) developed with available photonic components: coherent states as input encoding, a general Gaussian transformation followed by multi-mode photon subtractions as the processing layer, and homodyne detection as outputs readout. The closed-form expressions of such architecture are derived demonstrating the family of adaptive activations and the quantum-optical neurons that emerge from the amount of photon-subtracted modes, proving that the proposed design satisfies the Universal Approximation Theorem within a single layer. To classically simulate the QONN training, the high-performance QuaNNTO library has been developed based on Wick-Isserlis expansion and Bogoliubov transformations, allowing multi-layer exact expectation values of non-Gaussian states without truncating the infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. Experiments on supervised learning and state-preparation tasks show balanced-resource efficiency with strong expressivity and generalization capabilities, illustrating the potential of the architecture for scalable photonic quantum machine learning and for quantum applications such as complex non-Gaussian gate synthesis.