CAREER: Enabling Scalable and Resilient Quantum Computer Architectures through Synergistic Hardware-Software Co-Design

量子计算机可以帮助解决物理，化学，材料设计，优化和机器学习中一些最复杂的问题。世界范围内正在努力创造更大，更可靠的量子计算机，增强其执行复杂量子算法的能力。尽管取得了这一进展，但实际的量子计算面临着重大挑战，包括量子比特（qubit）设备对环境噪声的敏感性，从而产生不准确的结果。此外，在短期内可以利用量子计算机的算法的有限可用性是一个重大障碍，因为现有算法需要超过当前量子硬件能力的数百万次无噪声操作。解决现实世界问题所必需的量子硬件与当今的量子计算技术之间存在着巨大的差距。该奖项旨在通过集成的硬件和软件设计方法以及开发软件工具来帮助用户利用现有和未来的量子硬件，专注于可扩展和弹性的量子计算机架构，从而弥合这一差距。此外，该奖项将创建一个可广泛访问的量子计算课程，并支持外联活动，以吸引和教育量子信息科学的本科生。 该项目侧重于两个研究方向。第一个重点集中在共同设计指令集架构（伊萨）和并行计算，以实现高效和弹性的架构，并引入新的硬件-软件原语，以帮助扩展分布式量子位控制。在伊萨方面，该项目将研究大多数量子硬件平台提供的灵活指令集如何在不过度增加校准复杂性的情况下利用新的门。为了在容错量子计算机（FTQC）上实现大多数现实世界应用所需的大量操作，该项目将开发一个运行时，该运行时能够检测由于不稳定量子比特设备引起的噪声放大事件，并通过移动数据和学习最佳噪声缓解策略来缓解这些事件。该项目的第二个重点是开发软件工具，以促进量子算法的有效经验设计和评估。为此，该项目将开发工具来设计，调整和调试混合经典量子工作流。此外，该项目将研究部分容错量子计算机架构的有效性，其中只有一部分操作受到错误保护，并调查是否共同设计伊萨，运行时，纠错，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估来支持审查标准。

Abstract Quantum computers can help solve some of the most complex problems in physics, chemistry, material design, optimization, and machine learning. A worldwide effort is underway to create larger, more reliable quantum computers, enhancing their ability to execute complex quantum algorithms. Despite this progress, practical quantum computing faces significant challenges, including the susceptibility of quantum bit (qubit) devices to environmental noise, producing inaccurate results. Furthermore, the limited availability of algorithms that can leverage quantum computers in the near term is a significant hurdle, as existing algorithms require millions of noise-free operations beyond the current quantum hardware capabilities. The gap between the quantum hardware necessary for solving real-world problems and today's quantum computing technology is significant. This award seeks to bridge this gap by focusing on scalable and resilient quantum computer architectures through an integrated approach to hardware and software design and developing software tools to help users leverage existing and future quantum hardware. Moreover, this award will create a broadly accessible quantum computing curriculum and support outreach activities to engage and educate undergraduates in quantum information sciences. This project focuses on two research thrusts. The first thrust concentrates on co-designing Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) and Runtime to enable efficient and resilient architectures and introduce new hardware-software primitives to help scale distributed qubit control. On the ISA front, the project will investigate how flexible instruction sets offered by most quantum hardware platforms, which allow new gates by calibrating pulses, can be leveraged without overly increasing the calibration complexity. For enabling a large number of operations on a Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computer (FTQC), required by most real-world applications, this project will develop a runtime capable of detecting noise amplification events due to unstable qubit devices and mitigating them by moving data and learning optimal noise mitigation policies. The second thrust of this project will focus on developing software tools to facilitate efficient empirical design and evaluation of quantum algorithms. To that end, the project will develop tools to design, tune, and debug hybrid classical-quantum workflows. Moreover, the project will study the efficacy of partially fault-tolerant quantum computer architectures, where only a subset of operations are protected against errors, and investigate if co-designing ISA, runtime, error correction, and applications can push partial FTQC toward practical utility.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.