Q-CTRL, a startup that applies the principles of control engineering to accelerate the development of quantum technology, announced the creation of Quantum Professional Services, which is aimed at helping organizations that are extracting maximum achievable performance from today’s cloud-based quantum computers, according to a company news release.
With the advent of cloud-based quantum computing platforms such as IBM Q, Rigetti Computing’s Quantum Cloud Service, Microsoft’s Azure Quantum, and Amazon Web Services’ Braket, organizations are hoping to exploit the power of quantum computing in finance, logistics, telecommunications, transportation, pharmaceuticals, and more.
However, developing new algorithms for quantum computers isn’t the only challenge. Users still face many obstacles making them run successfully on cloud hardware, according to Andre Carvalho, Quantum Professional Services Lead at Q-CTRL.
“Today’s cloud quantum computing hardware is far from ideal; to make these systems more broadly usable, performance is often constrained and capabilities are limited,” said Carvalho. “Peak performance has generally only been accessible to specialist hardware research teams and even then still suffers from errors that have prevented the realization of ‘quantum advantage’ – when quantum computers solve practically relevant problems better or faster than conventional machines.”
Based on its years of experience in developing infrastructure-software solutions for quantum computers based on control-engineering, Q-CTRL’s Quantum Professional Services team can assist organizations seeking to overcome the constraints of today’s cloud-based quantum computers to improve algorithmic success.
The team helps users achieve this with custom-designed tools for:
- Hardware calibration and characterization
- Hardware stabilization against performance variations
- Machine-learning-based error suppression in operations & measurements
- Algorithm optimization and performance benchmarking
“Enterprises are using Quantum as a Service (QaaS) cloud-based interfaces to build a quantum-ready workforce and explore how quantum computing can benefit them,” Carvalho said. “However, pushing quantum computers to deliver true quantum advantage is extremely difficult and has so far not been achievable using standard interfaces. That’s why Q-CTRL is now providing a team of experts with unmatched experience characterizing and optimizing cloud-based quantum computing hardware to help our partners achieve maximum performance.”
Michael J. Biercuk, founder and CEO of Q-CTRL, added that the team was created, in part, because companies are increasingly interested in using quantum computing to improve business processes.
“Interest in cloud-based quantum computing is accelerating as enterprises seek and prepare for quantum advantage,” said Michael J. Biercuk, founder and CEO of Q-CTRL. “As one of the world’s most experienced teams in quantum hardware optimization and characterization, we’re excited to share our expertise and tools with users seeking a competitive advantage from their quantum computing research.”
Market research firm IDC predicts that 25 percent of Fortune 500 companies will have secured a competitive advantage from quantum computing by 2023.
