Periodic Reporting for period 2 - NEASQC (NExt ApplicationS of Quantum Computing)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2022-03-01 al 2023-08-31
NEASQC aims at demonstrating that, though the millions of qubits that will guarantee fully fault-tolerant quantum computing are still far away, there are practical use cases for the NISQ (Noise Intermediate-Scale Quantum) devices that will be available in the near future. NISQ computing can deliver significant advantages when running certain applications, thus bringing game-changing benefits to users, and particularly industrial users.
The NEASQC consortium has chosen a wide selection of NISQ-compatible industrial and financial use-cases, and will develop new quantum software techniques to solve those use-cases with a practical quantum advantage. To achieve this, the project brings together a multidisciplinary consortium of academic and industry experts in Quantum Computing, High Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, chemistry...
The ultimate ambition of NEASQC is to encourage European user communities to investigate NISQ quantum computing. For this purpose, the project consortium will define and make available a complete and common toolset that new industrial actors can use to start their own practical investigation and share their results.
NEASQC also ambitions to build a much-needed bridge between Quantum Computing hardware activities, particularly those of the Quantum Technologies flagship, and the end-user community. Even more than in classical IT, NISQ computing demands a strong cooperation between hardware teams and software users. We expect our work in use cases will provide strong directions for the development of NISQ machines, what will be very valuable to the nascent quantum hardware industry.
NEASQC objectives
1. Develop 9 industrial and financial use cases with a practical quantum advantage for NISQ machines.
2. Develop open source NISQ programming libraries for industrial use cases, with a view to facilitate quantum computing experimentation for new users.
3. Build a strong user community dedicated to industrial NISQ applications.
4. Develop software stacks and benchmarks for the Quantum Technology Flagship hardware platforms.
The NEASQC consortium has chosen a wide selection of NISQ-compatible industrial and financial use-cases, and will develop new quantum software techniques to solve those use-cases with a practical quantum advantage. To achieve this, the project brings together a multidisciplinary consortium of academic and industry experts in Quantum Computing, High Performance Computing, Artificial Intelligence, chemistry...
The ultimate ambition of NEASQC is to encourage European user communities to investigate NISQ quantum computing. For this purpose, the project consortium will define and make available a complete and common toolset that new industrial actors can use to start their own practical investigation and share their results.
NEASQC also ambitions to build a much-needed bridge between Quantum Computing hardware activities, particularly those of the Quantum Technologies flagship, and the end-user community. Even more than in classical IT, NISQ computing demands a strong cooperation between hardware teams and software users. We expect our work in use cases will provide strong directions for the development of NISQ machines, what will be very valuable to the nascent quantum hardware industry.
NEASQC objectives
1. Develop 9 industrial and financial use cases with a practical quantum advantage for NISQ machines.
2. Develop open source NISQ programming libraries for industrial use cases, with a view to facilitate quantum computing experimentation for new users.
3. Build a strong user community dedicated to industrial NISQ applications.
4. Develop software stacks and benchmarks for the Quantum Technology Flagship hardware platforms.
During the first reporting period, our consortium has:
- Set-up the NEASQC project management organization and Tools
- Set-up the NEASQC communication, dissemination and exploitation tools (website, project presentations, table of exploitable results…) and define the communication, dissemination and exploitation plans for the duration of the project.
The process for Associated End Users (AEU) has been defined and 9 AEU application have been received.
- Set-up the NEASQC Computing Platform and provided training and support on QLM/MyQLM
- Set-up the first version of “open-source NISC” application libraries by installing the Continuous Integration Platform and defining the processes (documentation, application examples) for libraries integration.
6 Libraries have already been initiated (QCCC (UC1) - alpha, QNLP (UC2) - pre-alpha, QPSA Divide & Quantum (UC4), QuantumMatrix (UC5), VA (UC8) – beta, BBO (UC8) - beta)
- Prepare special build of myQLM with compilation chains for the supported QPUs AQTION
- Set-up the application centric benchmark by making a revision of the SoTa, experimenting a first draft on one case, and defining the methodology.
- start the integrated work (between academia, industrial, SME s) on the 9 use cases, taken from our industrial real use cases, to demonstrate NISQ applicability and NISQ potentials. This encompasses the development of a prototype software for each UC, its qualification on a NISQ platform and benchmark with the existing classical methods. The work will start with specifications and analysis, and first version of contributing algorithms and/or Use case software prototype depending on the Use case.
QRBS Architecture, formal specification and requirements have been defined.
- Set-up the NEASQC project management organization and Tools
- Set-up the NEASQC communication, dissemination and exploitation tools (website, project presentations, table of exploitable results…) and define the communication, dissemination and exploitation plans for the duration of the project.
The process for Associated End Users (AEU) has been defined and 9 AEU application have been received.
- Set-up the NEASQC Computing Platform and provided training and support on QLM/MyQLM
- Set-up the first version of “open-source NISC” application libraries by installing the Continuous Integration Platform and defining the processes (documentation, application examples) for libraries integration.
6 Libraries have already been initiated (QCCC (UC1) - alpha, QNLP (UC2) - pre-alpha, QPSA Divide & Quantum (UC4), QuantumMatrix (UC5), VA (UC8) – beta, BBO (UC8) - beta)
- Prepare special build of myQLM with compilation chains for the supported QPUs AQTION
- Set-up the application centric benchmark by making a revision of the SoTa, experimenting a first draft on one case, and defining the methodology.
- start the integrated work (between academia, industrial, SME s) on the 9 use cases, taken from our industrial real use cases, to demonstrate NISQ applicability and NISQ potentials. This encompasses the development of a prototype software for each UC, its qualification on a NISQ platform and benchmark with the existing classical methods. The work will start with specifications and analysis, and first version of contributing algorithms and/or Use case software prototype depending on the Use case.
QRBS Architecture, formal specification and requirements have been defined.
The expected results and potential impacts are :
a- Impacts of the technology enablement activities
The technology enablement deliverables include:
• A complete quantum programming environment, with low layer support of the QT Flagship hardware platform – derived from the Atos BULL freeware, myQLM
• A set of open source application software libraries derived after the use cases developments
• An application-focused hardware benchmark
We expect these deliverables to produce the following impacts:
• Boost the research in NISQ applications in Europe, as new industrial actors will find a complete and common toolset to start their practical investigation and share their results
• Build a steady bridge between the hardware activities and the end-users’ community. Even more than in classical IT, NISQ computing needs a strong cooperation between hardware makers and software users. So far it has been lacking in the QT Flagship, and we expect to successfully fill this gap. Thanks to our deliverables, hardware teams will have a framework to benchmark and optimize their platforms for the future users, as well as a compilation stack to offer to their early experimenters.
b- Impacts of the use case related activities
• Impact for the industrial members
The main motivation of our industrial members to participate to this call is that they are expecting tangible outcomes. The expected impacts are carefully documented in the corresponding work-packages, for each use case.
As a common denominator, the industrials are expecting to develop useful quantum advantage for their business, so that they will gain competitive advantages as soon as powerful enough NISQ platforms will be available. As such, IPR is carefully considered.
• Impact for the academic members
Quantum algorithmics has been developed so far in the scientific community. Not all discoveries have been examined from an application point of view. Conversely, not all applications candidate to quantum advantage have not been formalized to theoreticians. There is still a gap between the communities, as it occurred decades ago at the beginning of classical computer science. This project offers an unprecedented multidisciplinary collaboration framework between QC, HPC, AI, chemistry researchers, industry experts, off which brand-new research shall emerge.
• Impact for the whole community
We expect that our results and methodology will stimulate the academic and industrial communities. NEASQC members will spend most time and attention to the dissemination, in the various communities of QC end-users (in particular HPC, chemistry, optimization, ...) and academia. We also expect our work in use cases to provide strong directions for the development of NISQ machines, what would be very valuable the nascent quantum hardware industry.
a- Impacts of the technology enablement activities
The technology enablement deliverables include:
• A complete quantum programming environment, with low layer support of the QT Flagship hardware platform – derived from the Atos BULL freeware, myQLM
• A set of open source application software libraries derived after the use cases developments
• An application-focused hardware benchmark
We expect these deliverables to produce the following impacts:
• Boost the research in NISQ applications in Europe, as new industrial actors will find a complete and common toolset to start their practical investigation and share their results
• Build a steady bridge between the hardware activities and the end-users’ community. Even more than in classical IT, NISQ computing needs a strong cooperation between hardware makers and software users. So far it has been lacking in the QT Flagship, and we expect to successfully fill this gap. Thanks to our deliverables, hardware teams will have a framework to benchmark and optimize their platforms for the future users, as well as a compilation stack to offer to their early experimenters.
b- Impacts of the use case related activities
• Impact for the industrial members
The main motivation of our industrial members to participate to this call is that they are expecting tangible outcomes. The expected impacts are carefully documented in the corresponding work-packages, for each use case.
As a common denominator, the industrials are expecting to develop useful quantum advantage for their business, so that they will gain competitive advantages as soon as powerful enough NISQ platforms will be available. As such, IPR is carefully considered.
• Impact for the academic members
Quantum algorithmics has been developed so far in the scientific community. Not all discoveries have been examined from an application point of view. Conversely, not all applications candidate to quantum advantage have not been formalized to theoreticians. There is still a gap between the communities, as it occurred decades ago at the beginning of classical computer science. This project offers an unprecedented multidisciplinary collaboration framework between QC, HPC, AI, chemistry researchers, industry experts, off which brand-new research shall emerge.
• Impact for the whole community
We expect that our results and methodology will stimulate the academic and industrial communities. NEASQC members will spend most time and attention to the dissemination, in the various communities of QC end-users (in particular HPC, chemistry, optimization, ...) and academia. We also expect our work in use cases to provide strong directions for the development of NISQ machines, what would be very valuable the nascent quantum hardware industry.