Q-CTRL digest
Intelligent autonomy for frictionless quantum device bring-up
March 14, 2025
Build superior quantum computers
Move faster with the most powerful control design and automation solution for the quantum era.
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Our clients
<5min
Time to integration
>99.9%
2-qubit gate fidelities
<4 hours
Time to device bring-up
Boulder Opal empowers hardware teams to solve their biggest challenges
Quantum hardware teams must advance to bigger, higher performing devices, but these systems are notoriously sensitive and hard to control.
Boulder Opal provides cutting-edge control technologies through a familiar Python client so users can effectively design, automate, and scale quantum hardware.
With the Scale Up package, Q-CTRL uses industry-leading control expertise to collaborate on custom Boulder Opal solutions to solve critical performance and operational problems.
Design hardware and control solutions together
Quickly realize and expand your hardware's full potential
Push hardware to the limit with optimized control solutions
Accelerate workflows between theory and experimentation
Uncover critical system parameters that drive performance
Automate key control and characterization tasks
Reach peak efficiency and performance with automation
Simplify repetitive characterization, optimization, and calibration tasks
Achieve performance beyond what's possible manually
Save hours through massive increases in efficiency
Scale control solutions for broader impact
Reach commercial scale with bigger, higher quality devices.
Standardize control routines for consistency and speed
Maximize throughput while ensuring product quality
Abstract technical workflows so anyone can do them
How it works
Boulder Opal provides access to the key building blocks of critical quantum control techniques so users can uncover the true characteristics of underlying hardware and then optimize the performance of that hardware to its full potential.
This is all delivered through a local Python client and cloud-accelerated computational tools to provide the scalability and speed required for quantum hardware development and deployment.
Simulation
Model quantum systems with integrated time-varying noise and signal libraries.
Model-based control
Design control solutions delivering peak performance based on the encoded quantum model.
Characterization
Accurately define hardware specifications, hamiltonian parameters, and environmental noise.
Closed-loop optimization
Implement automated feedback loops for various design, calibration, and hardware-performance optimization tasks.
Experiment scheduling
Orchestrate complex automated calibration and tuneup workflows constructed using Boulder Opal’s functions.
Support for your hardware
Boulder Opal is designed and supported across multiple physical system modalities. Our classical set of tools leverages universal Hamiltonian parameters and mainstream electronics, operating at a level above qubit and device architecture specifics.
Then, our Scale Up solutions apply innovative control routines that are adaptable across the modality spectrum. At the end of the day, control is a universal technique that when done correctly, can push all quantum technologies forward.
Superconducting qubits
Across the full range of superconducting strategies, from transom to charge to phase qubits and beyond, Boulder Opal has helped organizations design and optimize the characterization, calibration, and control routines of the largest quantum device types available.
Silicon qubits and quantum dots
A promising solution for future scale and practicality, silicon-based qubits require extensive tuning processes that can be accelerated and optimized with Boulder Opal solutions.
Trapped-ion qubits
From trapped ions to neutral atoms, qubits based on atomic properties can use Boulder Opal control strategies to help maximize the operator fidelities and execution times to make these devices more practical.
Neutral atom qubits
Atomic qubits are intrinsically perfect and immune to most forms of electrical noise - how well you can control them is everything. Advances in electronics and laser systems now give you access to manipulate these devices with the precision required to meet their potential.
Color Centers and NV Diamond
Diamond-based systems operating at room temperatures have some significant advantages over the colder modality types, Boulder Opal is practically designed to harness these more difficult control regimes.
What’s included in Boulder Opal
These powerful capabilities support hardware teams with impactful control techniques to address problems that are otherwise out of reach.
Python client for easy integration into current workflows
Comprehensive documentation for easier onboarding
Cloud accelerated computation and web-based admin tools
Get up and running in minutes
Boulder Opal integrates easily with common Python packages and a wide range of control electronics systems so you can add powerful new capabilities with minimal effort.
Software
Qiskit, Quil, QuTip, ARTIQ
Controllers
Quantum Machines, Qblox, Zurich Instruments, Tabor Quantum Solutions, Keysight
Hardware
We support superconducting, trapped ion, neutral atom, and other types of quantum hardware
Save hours with automated system characterization and calibration
Calibration and tuneup tasks that took weeks can be reduced to minutes with best-in-class automated solutions fully configured for your system out-of-the-box. Save hours of manual system characterization and calibration with our automated scheduler and custom-configured nodes.
We have the right plan for you
Start with our free Basic plan and upgrade if you need
to further accelerate research and development progress.
Basic
$0
Free Basic plan, yearly limits apply
For beginners, students, and explorers
Cloud software platform
4 vCPU, 32 GB RAM machine
1 machine (1 calculation at a time)
12 cloud machine hours
Standard support
Essentials
$1,500
USD / year
Managed compute for small teams
Cloud software platform
8 vCPU, 64 GB RAM machine
1 machine (1 calculation at a time)
200 cloud machine hours
Standard support
Performance
$9.99
$5,000
USD / year
Expanded computational resources for performance minded teams
Cloud software platform
16 vCPU, 128 GB RAM machine
Up to 4 machines (1 calculation per machine)
400 cloud machine hours
Standard + solutions engineering support
Professional
HPC-like resourcing for demanding teams of scientists and engineers
Hybrid cloud software platform
32 vCPU, 256 GB RAM machines
Up to 16 machines (1 calculation per machine)
1600 cloud machine hours
Dedicated + solutions engineering support
Real-world use cases
Nord Quantique is accelerating the path to useful quantum error correction with Boulder Opal
Nord Quantique used Boulder Opal to design a hardware-efficient QEC protocol for a superconducting system where quantum information is encoded in GKP states.
14%
increase in logical qubit lifetime
Read the case study
Given the complexity of the physics at play, being able to perform closed-loop optimization of a few physically motivated parameters of the quantum error correction protocol with Boulder Opal is very valuable to us.
Dany Lachance-Quirion
VP of Quantum Hardware
,
Nord Quantique
Northwestern looks to the heart of the universe with robust quantum sensors
With Boulder Opal, Northwestern suppressed 5 different noise sources simultaneously with a single optimized robust control pulse for atom interferometry.
5
different noise sources can be suppressed simultaneously with a single optimized robust control pulse for atom interferometry.
Read the case study
The breadth and flexibility of Boulder Opal allowed us to create our own optimization scenario and obtain pulses robust to the five most relevant experimental noise sources at the same time! This will be crucial in the development of atomic interferometers to detect dark matter and gravitational waves at currently unexplored frequencies.
Zilin Chen
Postdoc
,
Northwestern University
Boulder Opal
Bring innovative quantum solutions to market
Frequently asked questions
Is the Boulder Opal license limited to a single user?
Boulder Opal cloud licenses can accommodate an unlimited number of users. We provide recommendations for different license tiers for different group sizes to ensure that internal competition among users does not lead to computational delays.
What is calculation concurrency?
Number of calculations can be run concurrently across multiple cloud-hosted machines to accelerate computation. Having a higher concurrency is useful when you want to speed up your calculations or share computational resources within your team.
What are the cloud machine hours?
Number of hours of running a single cloud-hosted CPU machine in a year. You can buy additional machine time to supplement your Essentials, Performance or Professional plan.
Are there resources to help my learning curve?
You can access a comprehensive documentation suite to help you on your journey, starting with Get started guide, and Tutorials.
Is a local installation available?
A locally installed version of Boulder Opal can be provided upon request for circumstances mandating ultra-low latency in hardware communications. We recommend the cloud instance for general computations, as cloud services can provide performance far exceeding the specifications of the local machine.
Are Boulder Opal results validated on hardware or software?
We have independently validated and published technical validation of key demonstrations on hardware through our research - this includes device-level demonstrations of improvements >10X.We have also established a range of hardware validations with our customers and R&D partners around the world, collected in our case studies.
