Press Release
The U.S Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a Phase II STTR grant to SC Solutions and Princeton University to develop a software toolset for quantum control and related optimization and calibration protocols.
This STTR program will leverage the vast library of control and optimization algorithms developed at SC Solutions and Princeton University for application to quantum systems for control, optimization and characterization. The goal is to create an integrated set of software tools to meet the objectives of (a) computational design and laboratory discovery of reliable controls, along with (b) calibration and characterization for current and emerging quantum devices thereby guiding them to their highest degree of achievable performance. Through extensive interviews with industry and university researchers and collaborators, the team has already identified a number of important needs to guide the software requirements. Several representative algorithms have already demonstrated the use of some important protocols defining only a few of the possible pathways to achieve the performance goals.
“The quantum computers being fabricated today are not yet capable of full error correction. These quantum devices will require the best design resources to assure that gate operations are performed at the highest fidelity with robustness to error sources.” said Dr. Robert Kosut the project PI. “Working with our partners at Princeton University under the direction of Professor Herschel Rabitz, we will develop a software product to address this fragility of quantum computers. Our operational philosophy is driven by specifications and needs from the growing community of users, and the STTR team is fully flexible regarding the choice of algorithm(s) for a specific task, whether from outside developers or created internally.”
Professor Rabitz remarked: “The aim of the Phase II effort is to develop a software toolset which can be interfaced with any of the various quantum systems. Additionally, we want to ensure the best attainable outcomes from smaller-scale fundamentally novel multi-qubit hardware that may be developed in university research laboratories. The software toolset will consider the particular characteristics of each device, including the presence of often unknown error sources resulting in an integrated framework of modules and protocols. An important goal of the toolset is to relieve quantum hardware developers from the burden of designing and implementing their own in-house quantum control and optimization software. Operating in this unique fashion will accelerate the development of practical quantum computing.”