CEO founder discusses quantum firmware at QEC19
In July 2019 Q-CTRL Founder and CEO, Prof. Michael J. Biercuk spoke at the Quantum Error Correction 2019 Conference in London. He joined a fantastic program of experts in quantum computing and Quantum Error Correction, all working to address the fundamental challenge of noise and error in quantum computing.
In this talk he laid out not only the mission of Q-CTRL in building infrastructure software to accelerate the pathway to the first useful quantum computers, but also the role Q-CTRL is playing in realizing large-scale fault-tolerant machines in the long term. This comes at the Intersection of physical layer controls with algorithms like QEC.
The quantum information community has relied on mathematical proofs of QEC performance to demonstrate that large-scale quantum computers can be built in principle. The theories of fault-tolerance and QEC are essential to our understanding of the potential of quantum computing. But they aren’t the whole story when it comes to building practical machines, rather than asymptotically large machines.
In particular Prof. Biercuk discussed how Q-CTRL’s Quantum Firmware intersects with Quantum Error Correction, and how it is this intersection that provides tremendous opportunity to bring fault-tolerant quantum computers to reality. He outlined several key strengths of Quantum Firmware relevant to the implementation of QEC
Suppress noise and errors deterministically. Impact: Reduce overheads for QEC by driving down physical error rates in any qubit.
Homogenize errors in space and time. Impact: Reduce deviations between median and worst-case errors in realistic devices which suffer from fabrication tolerances and go out of calibration.
Modify or “virtualize” error correlations. Impact: “Precondition” error statistics to build compatibility with QEC, reducing overhead requirements, and allowing more hardware to be dedicated to computation.
Prof. Biercuk’s talk at QEC 19 is available for free viewing for those seeking to better understand the role of Q-CTRL’s solutions in large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computers.
