Collaborative Research: FET: Medium: Efficient Compilation for Dynamically Reconfigurable Atom Arrays

University Of California-Los Angeles, Los Angeles CA

Investigators

Abstract

Quantum computing is considered one of the most promising alternatives to go beyond the Moore’s Law scaling and provide drastic acceleration for selected applications and further the information technology revolution. The groundbreaking research carried out over the past four decades indicates that large-scale quantum systems may be used for far-reaching applications ranging from simulations of complex quantum matter to general purpose quantum information processing. Several quantum hardware platforms have made substantial advances in the past decade. Neutral atoms trapped in arrays of optical tweezers have recently emerged as an exceptionally promising experimental platform for programmable quantum simulations and quantum computation. These systems are readily scaled to large numbers and demonstrated experimentally that the qubit coupling for entanglement can be reconfigured dynamically during the quantum computation process, thus, are named dynamically reconfigurable atom arrays (DRAAs). DRAA introduces a number of unique opportunities. In particular, it supports a cache-compute computation model, where temporary data can be “cached” in a specific atom array for later computation, mimicking the architecture of modern CPUs. Moreover, algorithms involving error-corrected logical qubits can be implemented very efficiently, with a number of controls that scales with a number of logical (rather than physical) qubits. However, to take full advantage of this unique architecture, novel methods for compilation need to be developed, as programming a DRAA involves not only qubit placement and gate scheduling, but also atom movement. In addition, error correction needs to be considered and optimized under the constraint of available resources. This project aims at developing a novel DRAA compiler that simultaneously considers the problems of qubit placement, gate scheduling, atom movement, and selected error correction under a common compilation framework. In particular, it addresses four interrelated problems, including (i) Scalable compilation for DRAA that can efficiently support mapping, scheduling, and atom movement for DRAAs with hundreds to tens of thousands of atoms; (ii) Efficient support of the cache-based DRAA architecture, which has a memory zone, an entanglement zone, and a readout zone, with data reuse and data movement optimization; (iii) Customized support for hardware-efficient error correction on DRAAs that takes full advantage of atom movement capability, transversal property, and DRAA-specific error-biasing; and (iv) Selective error correction under resource constraints, where error criticality is analyzed and identified. The algorithms and compilation flow will be tested experimentally on the DRAA quantum computer developed at Harvard University. The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration effort by a team of researchers from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) Computer Science Department and the Harvard Physics Department. The investigators plan to integrate the research with education to expose students to the exciting opportunities of quantum computing and train a new generation of students so that they have deep knowledge in both quantum computing device technologies and large-scale design automation and optimization. The research results from this project will be disseminated widely via publications and tutorials at various conferences. The team will further facilitate the technology transfer and community-wide participation using open-source releases of both the compilation system and the DRAA experimental data developed under this project. Finally, the investigators plan to broaden the participation in computing via high-school summer programs and partnerships with various diversity and outreach programs, such as the Center for Excellence in Engineering and Diversity at UCLA and CUAEngage at Harvard. 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.