Recent advances in quantum linear solvers offer a promising direction for accelerating extreme scientific computations such as fluid dynamics. However, the deep and complex circuits required by many quantum algorithms limit their practical use on current quantum hardware. The Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) presents a viable alternative for near-term quantum devices (NISQ), and initial efforts have explored its application to select fluid dynamics problems. In this work, we evaluate the use of VQLS for canonical fluid dynamics problems, aiming to identify pathways for generalizing its implementation across a broader class of systems. We analyze the impact of various circuit ansatz and classical optimizers on solution quality and convergence behavior. Furthermore, we assess the algorithm's feasibility within a hybrid quantum–high-performance computing (HPC) framework by porting it to QFw, a state-of-the-art quantum-HPC software stack.11This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the US DOE under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Recent advances in quantum linear solvers offer a promising direction for accelerating extreme scientific computations such as fluid dynamics. However, the deep and complex circuits required by many quantum algorithms limit their practical use on current quantum hardware. The Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) presents a viable alternative for near-term quantum devices (NISQ), and initial efforts have explored its application to select fluid dynamics problems. In this work, we evaluate the use of VQLS for canonical fluid dynamics problems, aiming to identify pathways for generalizing its implementation across a broader class of systems. We analyze the impact of various circuit ansatz and classical optimizers on solution quality and convergence behavior. Furthermore, we assess the algorithm's feasibility within a hybrid quantum–high-performance computing (HPC) framework by porting it to QFw, a state-of-the-art quantum-HPC software stack.11This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC, under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the US Department of Energy (DOE). The US government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the US government retains a nonexclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for US government purposes. DOE will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which is supported by the Office of Science of the US DOE under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725.
Fluid dynamics workloads are dominated by repeated solves of large, structured linear systems, motivating the search for quantum acceleration. The Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) is a leading near-term candidate, but practical deployment on hybrid quantum--high--performance computing (HPC) systems faces three persistent challenges: (i) the linear-combination-of-unitaries (LCU) encoding of the system matrix explodes in memory and runtime as the problem size grows, (ii) ansatz selection is largely empirical, with no clear link between standard circuit metrics and solver convergence, and (iii) end-to-end VQLS pipelines have rarely been exercised on production HPC hardware at non-trivial qubit counts. This work addresses these challenges through three contributions. First, we benchmark four matrix-encoding strategies---naive LCU, PennyLane-integrated, Fast Walsh--Hadamard Transform (FWHT)-based parallel Pauli decomposition, and an singular value decomposition (SVD)-based two-term LCU---and show that the FWHT approach reduces peak memory by up to 1298× on an 11×11 Hele--Shaw grid, while the SVD-based coherent VQLS delivers over 10,000× per-iteration speedup over standard Pauli-based VQLS at 8 qubits. Second, we evaluate 11 ansatz families with gradient-free and gradient-based optimizers on canonical Hele--Shaw flow, and find that expressibility and entanglement metrics correlate only weakly with VQLS convergence, motivating problem-aware ansatz design. Third, we deploy the full workflow on the OLCF Frontier supercomputer and successfully simulate a 15-qubit tridiagonal Toeplitz system on a single node. Together, these results establish a practical baseline for VQLS in hybrid quantum--HPC computation fluid dynamic (CFD) workflows and identify the remaining bottlenecks for larger problems.
Variational Quantum Algorithms (VQAs) have emerged as promising methods for tackling complex problems on near-term quantum devices. Among these algorithms, the Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) addresses linear systems of the form Ax=b, aiming to prepare a quantum state ∣x⟩ such that A∣x⟩ is proportional to the quantum state corresponding to b. A key advantage of VQLS is its use of amplitude encoding, which requires a number of qubits that scales logarithmically with the linear system size. However, the existing literature has primarily focused on linear systems of limited size or with a specific structure. In this study, we extend the application of VQLS to more general and larger problem instances, including problems where state preparation is non-trivial and problems within the real domain of fluid dynamics. Our investigation reveals some critical challenges inherent to VQLS, including the need for a sufficiently expressive ansatz, the large number of circuit executions required to estimate the cost function, and the high gate count in the circuits in the most general setting. Our analysis highlights the obstacles that need to be addressed for a broader application of VQLS and concludes that further research is necessary to fully leverage the algorithm's capabilities in addressing real-world problems.
Quantum computing (QC) represents an emerging frontier with significant potential for transformative advancements in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This potential has been explicitly recognized by the CFD Vision 2030 report, emphasizing the strategic importance of exploring QC for future breakthroughs. Among quantum algorithms relevant to CFD, the Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) is particularly promising due to its suitability for solving linear and Hamiltonian-based problems, characteristic of fundamental CFD equations such as the pressure-Poisson equation. However, the practical implementation of VQLS for large-scale CFD problems faces critical scalability challenges, most notably the exponential increase in the number of quantum circuit evaluations and the barren plateau phenomenon, which severely hampers trainability and algorithm convergence. In this study, two novel strategies are introduced to address these challenges. First, we utilize a block encoding technique based on efficient oracles, thereby significantly reducing quantum circuit complexity and qubit overhead while accessing system matrix. Second, we incorporate a quantum-inspired evolutionary optimization (QIEO) approach, demonstrating enhanced training efficiency and effectively mitigating the barren plateau issue. These improvements are integrated within a Hybrid Quantum-Classical Method (HQCM) linear solver framework and demonstrated through solving a 2D steady-state heat equation, representative of the pressure-Poisson equations common in incompressible CFD simulations. The proposed methodologies yield promising results, showcasing improved circuit efficiency, enhanced stability during optimization, and accurate numerical solutions. This work lays a foundational step toward realizing practical, scalable quantum-assisted CFD solvers and sets clear pathways for future research aimed at further algorithmic and architectural enhancements.
As the energy sector transitions towards more sustainable forms of energy production, classical Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) increasingly struggles with the bottle- necks of simulating high complexity turbulent flows. While quantum computing (QC) theoretically offers an exponential speedup for large-scale linear systems, current Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum (NISQ) hardware lacks the error correction required for deep and complex circuits that mathematically ideal algorithms require. Furthermore, the inherent linearity of quantum mechanics seriously impedes the solving non-linear partial differential equations (PDEs), which are critical for fluid modeling. To bridge thisgap, thisthesisevaluatestheVariationalQuantumLinearSolver(VQLS),a shallow- circuit, hybrid algorithm, applied to the 1D viscous Burgers’ equation while utilizing the Cole-Hopf transformation to analytically linearize the equation. In both simulated and actual hardware, the VQLS algorithm is implemented across increasingly scaled topographies (2, 4, and 8 qubits). This work intends to identify the limitations of implementing quantum fluid dynamics in near-term quantum hardware.
Quantum computing presents a revolutionary alternative for high-performance computing applications, notably in solving complex problems that are impractical with classical computers.This study employs a variational quantum linear solver (VQLS) to address the two-dimensional steady-state heat equation, demonstrating a potential of quantum algorithms in computational fluid dynamics (CFD).The efficacy of VQLS is tested across three different settings: noiseless emulation, noisy emulation, and quantum hardware, and compared with a classical computing algorithm, the tridiagonal matrix algorithm (TDMA).This comparison illustrates both the current capabilities and the practical challenges faced by quantum computing implementations.This approach highlights remaining hurdles in harnessing quantum computing for real-world scientific and engineering applications.
Accurate modelling of fluid flow in porous media is crucial for applications including hydrology, geological CO₂ storage, hydrogen storage, geothermal energy, and hydrocarbon recovery. The inherent heterogeneity of subsurface formations, characterized by spatial permeability contrasts, fractures, and vugs, leads to large and often ill-conditioned linear systems when discretized at high resolution. Although upscaling techniques reduce computational cost, they may obscure fine-scale features that significantly influence flow behavior, particularly in the presence of small but highly conductive fractures. This study investigates the Variational Quantum Linear Solver (VQLS) as an alternative framework for solving discretized Darcy flow equations in one-, two-, and three-dimensional (1D, 2D, and 3D) homogeneous and heterogeneous systems. VQLS approximates the solution to linear systems of the form Ax = b by preparing a quantum state proportional to the classical solution vector. The framework incorporates a hybrid quantum-classical cost formulation, which strengthens optimization in ill-conditioned systems, and a curvature-aware Adaptive Dynamic Ansatz, which enables principled circuit depth selection without manual tuning. Five experimental modes are evaluated, including fixed-depth training, hybrid cost formulation, adaptive ansatz growth, depth sweep analysis, and hybrid weight sweep. All experiments are conducted using noiseless statevector simulation. The results examine convergence behavior, solution accuracy, and algorithmic limitations in heterogeneous media, providing insight into the practical potential and current constraints of variational quantum solvers for porous media flow modelling.