Deltaflow Virtual Lab

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Quantum computers can simulate quantum systems, such as the electrons in drugs and materials, much faster than standard computers. They promise to open up markets worth billions of pounds in the pharmaceutical and chemical industry. However, building a quantum computer is a technically challenging process. By trial and error, engineers and researchers design and improve qubits, the quantum version of bits, so that they can run algorithms and applications on them. Key to these engineering tasks are the systems that control the qubits. These systems are also the bottleneck to adding more qubits to a quantum computer in order to use quantum computers in commercial settings.Due to COVID-19 and the accompanying lockdowns, many labs in which quantum computers are being developed have had to shut down. The all-important work on optimising the qubits and control systems cannot proceed in this climate. Riverlane is building a tool, Deltaflow Virtual Lab (Deltaflow-VL), that mimics the important parts of a quantum computing system so that researchers and engineers can develop new ideas without having to go to their labs. Deltaflow-VL is the first of its kind since there are currently no tools available that allow quantum hardware engineers to work remotely in a productive manner.Beyond the pandemic, Deltaflow-VL has the potential to make building a quantum computer more efficient. By mimicing and modelling the control systems and qubits, quantum hardware engineers are less reliant on trial and error when optimising their control systems. This could give the UK quantum computing industry a competitive advantage in the future.