C55-04a: Software for Automatic Control, Calibration and Validation of Quantum Processors

Quantum computers has the potential to revolutionize computing, solving problems in chemistry, material science and optimization that are beyond the reach of today's most powerful supercomputers. However, we are still in the early phase of the technology development, and today’s quantum hardware systems suffer from drift and imperfections and require frequent calibrations to operate properly. These calibration routines are generally non-trivial to implement and can be time-consuming to execute, creating bottlenecks for the industry when scaling up to larger systems with more quantum bits. In this work, we will develop an open-source framework capable of defining, scheduling, and executing automatic quantum bit tune-up and benchmarking protocols for intermediate-size quantum processors (tens to hundreds of quantum bits). The system will be general enough to support the most commonly used quantum computer technologies, while providing customizability to address the various needs of the different platforms. In phase I of the project, we will build the foundations of this software. We will set up a database system capable of handling large sets of structured experimental data, and combine it with an execution engine that can perform parallel data acquisition and analysis across multiple computers. These services will allow efficient implementation of the control, characterization and benchmarking protocols required for automatic tune-up procedures. Our system will be tested on multiple types of quantum hardware, both in the labs of Atlantic Quantum and at the Engineering Quantum Systems group at MIT. Our open-source approach will greatly benefit academic research and the quantum computing research community more broadly by providing software toolsets that help facilitate the realization of near-term quantum computers.