A critical challenge to making quantum computers work in practice is effectively combining them with classical computing resources. From the classical side of hybrid algorithms and integrated application workflows to decoding syndromes for quantum error correction, tightly coupled high performance classical computing will be important for many of the functions required to realize useful quantum computing. A key tool for enabling research and application development is a programming model and software toolchain which allow researchers to straightforwardly co-program classical and quantum computers and leverage the best tools available for each. NVIDIA CUDA Quantum is a single-source programming model in C++ and Python for heterogeneous quantum-classical computing. The CUDA Quantum platform provides several advantages and new capabilities that enable users to get more out of quantum processors. Here, we present CUDA Quantum and demonstrate several use cases including Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) where it provides a significant (287x) performance and capability benefit over existing quantum programming.
A critical challenge to making quantum computers work in practice is effectively combining them with classical computing resources. From the classical side of hybrid algorithms and integrated application workflows to decoding syndromes for quantum error correction, tightly coupled high performance classical computing will be important for many of the functions required to realize useful quantum computing. A key tool for enabling research and application development is a programming model and software toolchain which allow researchers to straightforwardly co-program classical and quantum computers and leverage the best tools available for each. NVIDIA CUDA Quantum is a single-source programming model in C++ and Python for heterogeneous quantum-classical computing. The CUDA Quantum platform provides several advantages and new capabilities that enable users to get more out of quantum processors. Here, we present CUDA Quantum and demonstrate several use cases including Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) where it provides a significant (287x) performance and capability benefit over existing quantum programming.
The connection and eventual integration of High-Performance Computing (HPC) with Quantum Computing (QC) represents a transformative advancement in computational technology, promising significant enhancements in solving complex, previously intractable problems. This manuscript provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of HPC-QC interfacing, detailing architectural methodologies, software stack developments, middleware functionalities, and hardware integration strategies. It critically assesses existing hardware-level integration models, ranging from standalone and loosely-coupled architectures to tightly-integrated and on-node systems. The software ecosystem is analyzed, highlighting prominent frameworks such as Qiskit, PennyLane, CUDA-Q, and middleware solutions like Pilot-Quantum, essential for seamless hybrid computing environments. Furthermore, the manuscript discusses practical applications in optimization, machine learning, and many-body dynamics, where hybrid HPC-QC systems can offer substantial advantages. It also describes existing challenges, including hardware limitations (coherence, scalability, connectivity), software maturity, communication overhead, resource management complexities, and cost factors. Finally, future directions towards tighter hardware and software integration are discussed, emphasizing ongoing research developments and emerging trends that promise to expand the capabilities and accessibility of hybrid HPC-QC systems.
We present the NVIDIA cuQuantum SDK [1], a state-of-the-art library of composable primitives for GPU-accelerated quantum circuit simulations. As the size of quantum devices continues to increase, making their classical simulation progressively more difficult, the availability of fast and scalable quantum circuit simulators becomes vital for quantum algorithm developers, as well as quantum hardware engineers focused on the validation and optimization of quantum devices. The cuQuantum SDK was created to accelerate and scale up quantum circuit simulators developed by the quantum information science community by enabling them to utilize efficient scalable software building blocks optimized for NVIDIA GPU-based platforms. The functional building blocks provided cover the needs of both state vector- and tensor network- based simulators, including approximate tensor network simulation methods based on matrix product state, projected entangled pair state, and other factorized tensor representations. By leveraging the enormous computing power of the latest NVIDIA GPU architectures, quantum circuit simulators that have adopted the cuQuantum SDK demonstrate significant acceleration, compared to CPU-only execution, for both the state vector and tensor network simulation methods. Furthermore, by utilizing the parallel primitives available in the cuQuantum SDK, one can easily transition to distributed GPU-accelerated platforms, including those furnished by cloud service providers and high-performance computing systems deployed by supercomputing centers, extending the scale of possible quantum circuit simulations. The rich capabilities provided by the cuQuantum SDK are conveniently made available via both Python and C application programming interfaces, where the former is directly targeting a broad Python quantum community and the latter allows tight integration with simulators written in any programming language.
Abstract Effectively manipulating quantum computing (QC) hardware in the presence of imperfect devices and control systems is a central challenge in realizing useful quantum computers. Susceptibility to noise critically limits the performance and capabilities of today’s so-called noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices, as well as any future QC technologies. Fortunately, quantum control enables efficient execution of quantum logic operations and quantum algorithms with built-in robustness to errors, and without the need for complex logical encoding. In this manuscript we introduce software tools for the application and integration of quantum control in QC research, serving the needs of hardware R&D teams, algorithm developers, and end users. We provide an overview of a set of Python-based classical software tools for creating and deploying optimized quantum control solutions at various layers of the QC software stack. We describe a software architecture leveraging both high-performance distributed cloud computation and local custom integration into hardware systems, and explain how key functionality is integrable with other software packages and quantum programming languages. Our presentation includes a detailed mathematical overview of key features including a flexible optimization toolkit, engineering-inspired filter functions for analyzing noise susceptibility in high-dimensional Hilbert spaces, and new approaches to noise and hardware characterization. Pseudocode is presented in order to elucidate common programming workflows for these tasks, and performance benchmarking is reported for numerically intensive tasks, highlighting the benefits of the selected cloud-compute architecture. Finally, we present a series of case studies demonstrating the application of quantum control solutions derived from these tools in real experimental settings using both trapped-ion and superconducting quantum computer hardware.
Achieving high-performance computation on quantum systems presents a formidable challenge that necessitates bridging the capabilities between quantum hardware and classical computing resources. This study introduces an innovative distribution-aware Quantum-Classical-Quantum (QCQ) architecture, which integrates cutting-edge quantum software framework works with high-performance classical computing resources to address challenges in quantum simulation for materials and condensed matter physics. At the heart of this architecture is the seamless integration of VQE algorithms running on QPUs for efficient quantum state preparation, Tensor Network states, and QCNNs for classifying quantum states on classical hardware. For benchmarking quantum simulators, the QCQ architecture utilizes the cuQuantum SDK to leverage multi-GPU acceleration, integrated with PennyLane's Lightning plugin, demonstrating up to tenfold increases in computational speed for complex phase transition classification tasks compared to traditional CPU-based methods. This significant acceleration enables models such as the transverse field Ising and XXZ systems to accurately predict phase transitions with a 99.5% accuracy. The architecture's ability to distribute computation between QPUs and classical resources addresses critical bottlenecks in Quantum-HPC, paving the way for scalable quantum simulation. The QCQ framework embodies a synergistic combination of quantum algorithms, machine learning, and Quantum-HPC capabilities, enhancing its potential to provide transformative insights into the behavior of quantum systems across different scales. As quantum hardware continues to improve, this hybrid distribution-aware framework will play a crucial role in realizing the full potential of quantum computing by seamlessly integrating distributed quantum resources with the state-of-the-art classical computing infrastructure.
Quantum computing has the potential to surpass the capabilities of current classical computers when solving complex problems. Combinatorial optimization has emerged as one of the key target areas for quantum computers as problems found in this field play a critical role in many different industrial application sectors (e.g., enhancing manufacturing operations or improving decision processes). Currently, there are different types of high-performance optimization software (e.g., ILOG CPLEX and Gurobi) that support engineers and scientists in solving optimization problems using classical computers. In order to utilize quantum resources, users require domain-specific knowledge of quantum algorithms, SDKs and libraries, which can be a limiting factor for any practitioner who wants to integrate this technology into their workflows. Our goal is to add software infrastructure to a classical optimization package so that application developers can interface with quantum platforms readily when setting up their workflows. This paper presents a tool for the seamless utilization of quantum resources through a classical interface. Our approach consists of a Python library extension that provides a backend to facilitate access to multiple quantum providers. Our pipeline enables optimization software developers to experiment with quantum resources selectively and assess performance improvements of hybrid quantum-classical optimization solutions.
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.