Project Details
Projekt
ACE-QC Fully Classical and Efficient Autonomous Calibration of Quantum Computers
Subject Area
Optics, Quantum Optics and Physics of Atoms, Molecules and Plasmas
Term
since 2025
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563372006
Our project is part of a larger effort to realize the full potential of quantum computers, which could solve problems far beyond the capabilities of today’s supercomputers. While quantum hardware has made significant progress, it remains noisy and requires constant monitoring and (re-)calibration. To this end, we need efficient ways to control quantum devices and fast methods to certify and calibrate them. However, current approaches to benchmark quantum devices fall short, rendering this process so-far time-consuming and costly for both providers and users. They often require too many experimental runs to evaluate the quality of quantum operations or lack robustness against physical errors and fail to provide reliable guarantees, inevitably leading to miscalibrated devices and low accuracy, limiting their usability. In this collaboration, our goal is to address all these challenges by creating a simple, efficient, and reliable method to calibrate and control quantum hardware. To achieve this, we will develop the first fully classical toolkit for autonomous calibration of multi-qubit quantum computers. This approach will require significantly fewer measurement runs – asymptotically optimal – to evaluate the quality of implemented quantum operations. Importantly, it will work without needing prior knowledge of how the multi-qubit quantum computer operates internally, and will deliver robust guarantees for the quality of implemented operations. The calibration results will be integrated into the quantum optimal control workflow, allowing the system to fine-tune its parameters and reduce deviations from the desired computation. This approach will not only improve accuracy but also significantly speed up the calibration process for quantum systems. Our classical autonomous calibration tool will be both sample-efficient and capable of operating in a black-box setup, allowing for meaningful comparisons between different hardware platforms. Thus, it will offer a paradigm shift in Research Area 5 of the Priority Program: Verification and Validation of Quantum Software and Systems, while contributing to the advancement of RA3: Software Stack with Runtime Infrastructures.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
Subproject of
SPP 2514:
Quantum Software, Algorithms and Systems - Concepts, Methods and Tools for the Quantum Software Stack
Co-Investigator
Dr. Felix Motzoi
