The future of quantum computing with superconducting qubits

• Published in: Journal of applied physics 2022-10, Vol.132 (16)
• Main Authors: Bravyi, Sergey, Dial, Oliver, Gambetta, Jay M., Gil, Darío, Nazario, Zaira
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Algorithms; Applied physics; Circuits; Error correcting codes; Error correction; Error correction & detection; Hardware; Knitting; Polynomials; Quantum computing; Qubits (quantum computing); Software; Topology
• ISSN: 0021-8979; 1089-7550
• DOI: 10.1063/5.0082975

For the first time in history, we are seeing a branching point in computing paradigms with the emergence of quantum processing units (QPUs). Extracting the full potential of computation and realizing quantum algorithms with a super-polynomial speedup will most likely require major advances in quantum error correction technology. Meanwhile, achieving a computational advantage in the near term may be possible by combining multiple QPUs through circuit knitting techniques, improving the quality of solutions through error suppression and mitigation, and focusing on heuristic versions of quantum algorithms with asymptotic speedups. For this to happen, the performance of quantum computing hardware needs to improve and software needs to seamlessly integrate quantum and classical processors together to form a new architecture that we are calling quantum-centric supercomputing. In the long term, we see hardware that exploits qubit connectivity in higher than 2D topologies to realize more efficient quantum error correcting codes, modular architectures for scaling QPUs and parallelizing workloads, and software that evolves to make the intricacies of the technology invisible to the users and realize the goal of ubiquitous, frictionless quantum computing.