Domestic quantum computing cloud platform launched heavily

On May 26, quantum information Research Institute officially released the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform at the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum, becoming one of the ten major scientific and technological achievements. This fully chain (fully stack) self-developed quantum computing cloud platform is equipped with three self-developed superconducting quantum chips, with a maximum bit count of 136 per chip

On May 26, quantum information Research Institute officially released the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform at the 2023 Zhongguancun Forum, becoming one of the ten major scientific and technological achievements. This fully chain (fully stack) self-developed quantum computing cloud platform is equipped with three self-developed superconducting quantum chips, with a maximum bit count of 136 per chip. At the same time, it has high measurement and control accuracy, and can achieve global entanglement of up to 18 quantum bits. Currently, this computing performance has reached the international advanced level. At present, the quantum computing cloud platform has been preliminarily applied and tested in fields including finance, and is expected to carry out practical applications in more fields such as logistics, materials, machine learning, drug research and development, and secure communication in the future.

release

Three different specifications of superconducting quantum chips launched on the quantum computing cloud platform

The quantum computing cloud platform is a demonstration of the comprehensive performance of quantum computing. In the form of Internet cloud computing, it integrates quantum chips, measurement and control equipment, quantum operation systems and application software, and provides researchers and testers with quantum computing power. It is a full stack technology and foundation for quantum computing to become practical.

Quantum information Science, together with the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Tsinghua University, has jointly launched the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform, meaning "quantum future". Three superconducting quantum chips have been launched, with 136, 18 and 10 quantum bits respectively. Users can choose the appropriate chips to run quantum computing tasks.

The cloud platform is compatible with the internationally recognized open quantum assembly language standard and provides three forms of submitting quantum computing tasks: graphical interface, quantum assembly language, and client, making it convenient for users to meet various application needs.

According to Fan Heng, a researcher at the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the team leader of the Quantum Computing Cloud Platform at the Beijing Quantum Academy, the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform currently holds a leading position in China in terms of single chip quantum bit count and chip count. The cloud platform has high measurement and control accuracy, can achieve global entanglement of 18 qubits, and has complete software functions, making it an internationally advanced quantum computing cloud platform.

What does global entanglement of 18 qubits mean? Wang Zheng'an, a founding member of the "Quafu" team and a postdoctoral fellow of the quantum information Institute of Quantum Information Science, told the Beijing Youth Daily that the main performance indicator of quantum computing is the number of quantum bits on a single quantum chip. At present, the largest chip of "Quafu", "ScQ-P136", has 136 quantum bits, ranking second only to the Osprey chip of IBM in the world.

Quantum entanglement "is a unique property of quantum and one of the important reasons for the advantages of quantum computing." We can understand quantum entanglement as a computing resource, and it is very difficult to manipulate multiple quantum bits to achieve entanglement simultaneously. The 'Quafu' quantum computing cloud platform can achieve global entanglement of 18 quantum bits in the cloud, which also reaches an advanced level internationally, "explained Wang Zheng'an.

The quantum cloud platform is the key technology for quantum computer to be applied, and the construction of quantum computing ecology is based on this system. The public can use the quantum cloud platform for experience, teaching, and research, as well as try some practical applications, such as quantum finance, quantum simulation, quantum games, etc; Scientific research institutions and high-tech companies can build their own application software, and link the parts that need to involve quantum computing to the quantum computer in the laboratory through the cloud to complete complex tasks.

working

'Quafu' is currently open for testing by domestic and foreign users

It is understood that the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform has been open for testing by domestic and foreign users, with over 2000 quantum computing researchers and students registered and running quantum computing tasks more than 500000 times, demonstrating its stable and efficient operation. For ordinary users, the system is open for free.

After quickly registering, the reporter from Beiqing Daily entered this website, and the left sidebar displayed: control panel, editor, resources, tasks, applications, news, etc. After clicking, the interface corresponding to this option will be displayed on the right side. For example, after clicking on the first "Control Panel", three larger buttons will be displayed at the top, namely Editor, Document, and PyQuafu. Users can click on the editor to directly use the quantum cloud computing platform online, or download and install the file and run the program on this cloud computing platform.

At the bottom of the homepage, there is the "latest updates", which will remind users of the latest progress of their operations in multiple aspects such as status, task ID, system name, queue location, and operations. Pulling down again will display the user's resources, including the number of systems and emulators.

Quafu meets the needs of domestic researchers and related practitioners. Some domestic research groups have remotely called quantum chips through the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform to build their own research or application software, and the ecological construction of quantum computing has gradually begun. Wang Zheng'an revealed that the three superconducting quantum chips used by "Quafu" are completely domestically produced from design to manufacturing, and the performance of the three chips is also at the world's advanced level. This puts the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform at an international advanced level, and technically it can already be replaced domestically.

research and development

The quantum entanglement number continues to increase, and after iteration, it has reached 136 bits

Wang Zheng'an told Beiqing Daily that the Beijing Quantum Academy has been established for five years, has achieved multiple heavyweight academic achievements, and has also accumulated a large number of scientific, technological, and professional talents. More than a year ago, the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform project was established and a dedicated quantum computing cloud platform team was established, led by Researcher Fan Hang. At the same time, the team gave full play to the geographical advantages of Beijing Quantum Institute, and cooperated closely with several teams in the institute, including superconducting quantum computing team, quantum algorithm application software team, and quantum operation system software development team, sharing the accumulated technology and experience. The prototype of the "Quafu" quantum computing cloud platform was quickly established from scratch. More than 50 members participated.

Wang Zheng'an said that initially, "Quafu" only had three chips of 10 bits, 18 bits, and 50 bits, but at that time it could not reach 136. With the iteration and process upgrade of the chips, the entanglement number of bits was also constantly increasing. Currently, after the third generation iteration, it can reach 136 bits. This chip is the result of the superconducting quantum computing team led by researchers Yu Haifeng and Jin Yirong at the Beijing Quantum Institute.

During the research and development process, many difficulties were also encountered. We have been conducting experiments in the laboratory before, and before each experiment, we need to spend a lot of effort manually calibrating all the equipment, which takes a day or even a few days. This is not a problem for conducting experiments, but if we want to provide cloud services, it will definitely not be possible because it needs to be online 24/7 and there should be no significant fluctuations in operation. Therefore, we have independently developed a The entire automatic calibration system is also constantly being upgraded

There are also some academic difficulties that need to be overcome. When designing superconducting quantum chips, different topological structures are considered, as shown on our website. It can be seen that quantum bits are not connected in pairs. If the topological structure required by the quantum program or algorithm we are running does not match the chip, then we need an automatic algorithm to perform a mapping or conversion, so that we can also meet any topological structure Quantum program operation. At the same time, this mapping algorithm also needs to consider the differences between quantum bits and other influences as much as possible, which is generally very complex

In addition, they also need to optimize in terms of time. "It is not possible to spend a particularly long time optimizing after a user submits a quantum program, which also affects the user experience. Therefore, there are very high requirements for the speed of the algorithm

experience

Internationally leading in chip bit count, free support for research in related fields

Dr. Xie Haonan from the Department of Physics at Tsinghua University has been experiencing the "Quafu" quantum cloud computing platform as a "seed user" since July last year. He told Beiqing Daily that last spring, in order to complete scientific research projects, he began selecting quantum computing cloud platforms. "Because the subject is about quantum algorithms, I hope to add some content in the paper to be able to run my algorithm in the actual quantum computer to verify its effect." Xie Haonan said that he initially used the foreign quantum computing cloud platform, and after spending hundreds of dollars to use it, he found that the operating effect of the chip was not particularly ideal, and would be subject to noise interference, leading to errors. He spent a long time searching for a solution until a senior brother recommended "Quafu" to him, which had just been launched. After testing, he found that the noise in the quantum chip of the "Quafu" platform was relatively low and the effect was relatively good, which was very helpful for the paper.

The "Quafu" platform supports research in related fields for free. Xie Haonan said that initially, "Quafu" only supported operations through web pages. After three months of launch, it not only supported web access, but also supported downloading software packages. For ordinary users, they can edit the quantum program through the visual circuit diagram in the interface of editing quantum circuit on the web page, and then submit it to the server for running. Xie Haonan and his team prefer to submit quantum programs to the server by downloading its software package and editing the code. As long as we have written the code, we can have it automatically help us complete everything, which is more convenient

Xie Haonan's research topic is "Design of a Quantum Algorithm for Realizing Virtual Time Evolution". He said that this is similar to a programming approach in quantum computing. If there is no platform, ordinary computers can be used for numerical simulation, but if there is a platform, theoretical demonstration and verification can be done on a real quantum computer, which can make the results of the paper more convincing.

"There is some noise in the quantum computer. If we simulate on a classical computer, it is generally an ideal situation. We can't imagine whether the program will run well if there is noise or other interference factors, so there is no way to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the algorithm, nor to improve the noise resistance of the algorithm." Xie Haonan said, After having this platform, we can feel how algorithms operate under the influence of noise during use, which gives us a good understanding of the performance of algorithms

In addition to "Quafu", Xie Haonan has also used other platforms, including IBM's quantum computing cloud platform. He believes that the "Quafu" platform has more bits than other platforms, and can achieve 10, 18, or even more than 100. "That is to say, if we want to implement a large-scale quantum computing task on a quantum computer, we need more bits, so we can only use 'Quafu'."

next

Quantum cloud computing will be applied to fields such as drug research and development, finance, and logistics

Wang Zheng'an said that quantum cloud computing is not intended to replace the classic cloud computing platform, just as quantum computer is not intended to replace the classic computer in terms of positioning, but to become a part of the computer, similar to the relationship between CPU (central processing unit) and GPU (graphics processor), which can be called QPU (quantum processing unit) to accelerate computing. So quantum cloud computing platforms cannot completely perform computing tasks independently of classical computers.

The technology of quantum cloud computing is mainly around quantum computer, and there are in-depth studies on the compilation, calibration and error correction of quantum circuits.

Quantum artificial intelligence and current artificial intelligence are not mutually replaceable, but rather rely on quantum artificial intelligence to assist classical artificial intelligence. We have also collaborated with some companies before, and one team is conducting research on the application of quantum computing in the financial field. We have introduced some quantum neural networks into the classical neural network model and achieved very ideal results

Another possible area for the application of quantum cloud computing is drug development. User Xie Haonan said that one of the substances responsible for the most important functions of living organisms in life science is proteins. As long as the properties of various proteins can be studied clearly, it can provide a more in-depth understanding of many life activities. The function of a protein is mainly determined by its molecular configuration, but if we want to theoretically calculate the configuration of a molecule, when the molecular size is relatively large, the computational workload is very large. Generally, a protein molecule is composed of thousands or even tens of thousands of atoms. Using quantum computing can optimize our computing resources, which can greatly reduce computational time and required bit resources

In addition, the main focus of drug development is to design new drug molecules. The effects of drugs on the human body and the processes of these chemical reactions require computer simulation. These simulations require a huge amount of computation, and quantum computing can accelerate the simulation process, providing significant assistance to the drug development process. Xie Haonan said that in the past, it was either simulated on classical computers, but it took a long time, or verified in real biochemical experiments. But if there are some drugs that we cannot efficiently prepare, or if there are some biological samples that we cannot efficiently obtain, then the best way is actually to simulate them on a computer

Fan Hang also stated that with the development of artificial intelligence, there is an increasing demand for computing power, and quantum computing also has a demand for quantum computing power. Therefore, developing quantum computing power and providing it to everyone through cloud platforms is also a very important technology in the development of quantum computing.

"The whole quantum computing industry is developing very fast, but at present it is still in the testing stage, and the actual application is far away. It is estimated that at least five years later. The actual application scenario may be clearer, and it is estimated that it will take about ten years to generate benefits or positive feedback. In this process, it is mainly focused on scientific research exploration, or solving scientific research problems in a certain discipline." Fan Heng told the Beijing Youth Daily.

Fan Hang also stated that there are two directions for the development of the "Quafu" quantum cloud platform in the next step: software and hardware. In terms of hardware, more chips are planned to be launched, and the number of single chips will continue to increase. At the same time, the accuracy of quantum computing will also continue to improve. In terms of software, the development of more promising software will begin with small-scale testing, and at a certain stage, it is expected to solve some problems with smaller value ratios. In the future, it is expected to generate greater value. If more application software is based on quantum chips on our cloud platform, in multiple scenarios There will always be valuable applications that begin to emerge and gradually develop, so software mainly develops an ecosystem based on cloud platforms

This article/our reporter Wen Jing

Overall planning/Yu Meiying's drawings/quantum information Research Institute

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