White Box Access to Quantum Testbeds for Co-Design

Abstract

At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), we operate and maintain the Quantum Device and Integration Testbed (QuDIT) facility, a small quantum testbed that supports about 10 active research teams (including our own) and over 50 internal and external collaborators. This testbed is designed to give remote white box access to users for research, training, and outreach. A guiding principle behind the development of our testbed infrastructure, software and user interfaces is to empower users to perform experiments at the cutting edge of quantum information science at any level of abstraction, from materials studies, device physics and control and characterization techniques to algorithm development and quantum operating system design. Our testbed targets a multilevel quantum system (qudit) to expand the accessible Hilbert space of a simple-to-manufacture quantum device and focuses on quantum simulation, typically implemented through custom gates designed with quantum optimal control methods, rather than on a universal computing framework with a fixed gate set. We leverage the Lab’s high-performance computing (HPC) program and related expertise to simulate quantum systems, develop hybrid algorithms, and generate gates optimized for given simulations. Additionally, we have adopted a co-design philosophy from the HPC community in designing new hardware, so that the systems we develop are optimized for the specific physics simulations we plan to use them for.