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Quantum Software: From Engineering to Interaction

Mina Alipour

Published Oct 21, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Recent progress in quantum computing has under-scored the need for specialized software to effectively address the unique challenges posed by quantum systems. While early research emphasized hardware and algorithmic breakthroughs, recent progress underscores the necessity of Quantum Soft-ware Engineering (QSE), an emerging discipline that combines software lifecycle processes, tooling, hybrid orchestration, and human-centered design. This paper integrates insights from QSE and quantum software architecture (QSA) to propose a hybrid execution architecture explicitly shaped by Quantum HCI principles, emphasizing developer experience, trust, and the quality of interaction with quantum systems. While quantum software represents a new genre of software-intensive systems, existing processes and notations can be adapted to derive architecting activities and develop modeling languages for quantum software. Additionally, tool chains can incorporate reusable knowledge and roles to automate and customize the architectural process. By analyzing current research and iden-tifying existing gaps, this paper aims to guide the systematic development of robust and scalable quantum software systems. Central to this vision is meaningful human interaction, ensuring that developers can interpret, act on, and trust system outputs from design to post-execution analysis.

DOI
10.1109/cbdcom68404.2025.00030

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Recent progress in quantum computing has under-scored the need for specialized software to effectively address the unique challenges posed by quantum systems. While early research emphasized hardware and algorithmic breakthroughs, recent progress underscores the necessity of Quantum Soft-ware Engineering (QSE), an emerging discipline that combines software lifecycle processes, tooling, hybrid orchestration, and human-centered design. This paper integrates insights from QSE and quantum software architecture (QSA) to propose a hybrid execution architecture explicitly shaped by Quantum HCI principles, emphasizing developer experience, trust, and the quality of interaction with quantum systems. While quantum software represents a new genre of software-intensive systems, existing processes and notations can be adapted to derive architecting activities and develop modeling languages for quantum software. Additionally, tool chains can incorporate reusable knowledge and roles to automate and customize the architectural process. By analyzing current research and iden-tifying existing gaps, this paper aims to guide the systematic development of robust and scalable quantum software systems. Central to this vision is meaningful human interaction, ensuring that developers can interpret, act on, and trust system outputs from design to post-execution analysis.
Quantum Software Engineering (QSE) is a recent trend - focused on unifying the principles of quantum mechanics and practices of software engineering - to design, develop, validate, and evolve quantum age software systems and applications. Software architecture for quantum computing (a.k. a. quantum software architectures (QSA)) supports the design, development, and maintenance etc. phases of quantum software systems using architectural components and connectors. QSA can enable quantum software designers and developers to map the operations of Qubits to architectural components and connectors for implementing quantum software. This research aims to explore the role of QSAs by investigating (i) architectural process having architecting activities, and (ii) human roles that can exploit available tools to automate and customise architecture-centric implementation of quantum software. Results of this research can facilitate knowledge transfer, enabling researchers and practitioners, to address challenges of architecture-centric implementation of quantum software systems.
Quantum software engineering (QSE) has emerged as a discipline to address the challenges associated with developing software systems in the context of advancing quantum computing technology. This paper explores architectural design patterns specific to QSE. Building on previous work highlighting the need for high-level patterns, we analyze emerging architectural approaches in quantum computing. We identify key challenges unique to hybrid quantum-classical systems and propose a preliminary taxonomy of QSE architectural patterns. These patterns address recurring design problems in areas such as quantum resource management and classical-quantum integration. We describe several potential patterns and discuss their theoretical applications in hybrid software systems. This work aims to provide a foundation for further research into standardizing QSE architectural practices, with the goal of enhancing various quality characteristics of hybrid software (e.g., modularity or maintainability) in the NISQ era and beyond.
As quantum computing continues to advance, the development of reliable and scalable quantum software systems becomes increasingly crucial. However, designing and implementing hybrid (quantum-classical) software systems poses unique challenges that require novel approaches and best practices. This position paper argues for the importance of developing architectural and design patterns specific to Quantum Software Engineering (QSE). We provide an overview of existing quantum software design patterns (more focused on low-level, programming details) and highlight the lack of patterns addressing hybrid software systems and architectural patterns. We discuss the key challenges that architectural patterns should address, including quantum-classical integration, maintainability, efficiency, and security. We also discuss the implications for practitioners, providing guidance on how to think high-level about hybrid software development process. Finally, we outline future research directions and emphasize the need for collaboration between the quantum computing and software engineering communities to establish a comprehensive high-level patterns framework for QSE.
This paper introduces a vision for Quantum Software Development lifecycle, proposing a hybrid full-stack iterative model that integrates quantum and classical computing. Addressing the current challenges in Quantum Computing (QC) such as the need for integrating diverse programming languages and managing the complexities of quantum-classical systems, this model is rooted in the principles of DevOps and continuous software engineering. It presents a comprehensive lifecycle for quantum software development, encompassing quantum-agnostic coding, testing, deployment, cloud computing services, orchestration, translation, execution, and interpretation phases. Each phase is designed to accommodate the unique demands of QC, enabling traditional software developers to engage with QC environments without needing in-depth QC expertise. The paper presents a detailed implementation roadmap, utilizing a range of existing tools and frameworks, thereby making quantum software development more accessible and efficient. The proposed model not only addresses current challenges in quantum software development but also makes a substantial contribution to the field of Quantum Software Engineering (QSE). By proposing a structured and accessible model, it sets the stage for further advancements and research in QSE, enhancing its practicality and relevance in a wide range of applications.
As quantum computers advance, the complexity of the software they can execute increases as well. To ensure this software is efficient, maintainable, reusable, and cost-effective—key qualities of any industry-grade software—mature software engineering practices must be applied throughout its design, development, and operation. However, the significant differences between classical and quantum software make it challenging to directly apply classical software engineering methods to quantum systems. This challenge has led to the emergence of Quantum Software Engineering (QSE) as a distinct field within the broader software engineering landscape. In this work, a group of active researchers analyze in depth the current state of QSE research. From this analysis, the key areas of QSE are identified and explored in order to determine the most relevant open challenges that should be addressed in the next years. These challenges help identify necessary breakthroughs and future research directions for advancing QSE.
Quantum computing systems rely on the principles of quantum mechanics to perform a multitude of computationally challenging tasks more efficiently than their classical counterparts. The architecture of software-intensive systems can empower architects who can leverage architecture-centric processes, practices, description languages, etc., to model, develop, and evolve quantum computing software (quantum software for short) at higher abstraction levels. We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate (i) architectural process, (ii) modeling notations, (iii) architecture design patterns, (iv) tool support, and (iv) challenging factors for quantum software architecture. Results of the SLR indicate that quantum software represents a new genre of software-intensive systems; however, existing processes and notations can be tailored to derive the architecting activities and develop modeling languages for quantum software. Quantum bits (Qubits) mapped to Quantum gates (Qugates) can be represented as architectural components and connectors that implement quantum software. Tool-chains can incorporate reusable knowledge and human roles (e.g., quantum domain engineers, quantum code developers) to automate and customize the architectural process. Results of this SLR can facilitate researchers and practitioners to develop new hypotheses to be tested, derive reference architectures, and leverage architecture-centric principles and practices to engineer emerging and next generations of quantum software.