Parallel quantum computing simulations via quantum accelerator platform virtualization

• Published in: Future generation computer systems 2024-11, Vol.160, p.264-273
• Main Authors: Claudino, Daniel, Lyakh, Dmitry I., McCaskey, Alexander J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Distributed computing; MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING; Quantum computing; Quantum software
• ISSN: 0167-739X; 1872-7115
• DOI: 10.1016/j.future.2024.06.007

Quantum circuit execution is a central task in quantum computation. Due to inherent quantum-mechanical constraints, quantum computing workflows often involve a considerable number of independent measurements over a large set of slightly different quantum circuits. Here we discuss a simple model for parallelizing such quantum circuit executions that is based on introducing a large array of virtual quantum processing units (mapped to HPC nodes in our case) as a parallel quantum computing platform. Implemented within the XACC framework, the model can readily take advantage of its backend-agnostic features, enabling parallel quantum computing/simulation over any target backend supported by XACC. We illustrate the performance of this approach by demonstrating strong scaling in two pertinent domain science problems, namely in computing the gradients for the multi-contracted variational quantum eigensolver and in data-driven quantum circuit learning, where we vary the number of qubits and the number of circuit layers. The latter simulation leverages the cuQuantum library to run efficiently on GPU-accelerated HPC platforms. •HPC can be a valuable tool in quantum computing research.•HPC can be easily integrated into quantum computing workflows via virtualization of quantum compute resources.•Flexible and robust communication framework among virtual QPUs based on the message passing interface (MPI) standard.•Scalable across domain science problems and hardware systems.