SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a quantum chemistry simulation benchmark to evaluate the performance of quantum devices and guide the development of applications for future quantum computers.

Their findings were published in npj Quantum Information.

[...] "We are currently running fairly simple scientific problems that represent the sort of problems we believe these systems will help us to solve in the future," said ORNL's Raphael Pooser, principal investigator of the Quantum Testbed Pathfinder project. "These benchmarks give us an idea of how future quantum systems will perform when tackling similar, though exponentially more complex, simulations."

Pooser and his colleagues calculated the bound state energy of alkali hydride molecules on 20-qubit IBM Tokyo and 16-qubit Rigetti Aspen processors. These molecules are simple and their energies well understood, allowing them to effectively test the performance of the quantum computer.

By tuning the quantum computer as a function of a few parameters, the team calculated these molecules' bound states with chemical accuracy, which was obtained using simulations on a classical computer. Of equal importance is the fact that the quantum calculations also included systematic error mitigation, illuminating the shortcomings in current quantum hardware.

[...] While the calculations were fairly simple compared to what is possible on leading classical systems such as ORNL's Summit, currently ranked as the world's most powerful computer, quantum chemistry, along with nuclear physics and quantum field theory, is considered a quantum "killer app." In other words, it is believed that as they evolve quantum computers will be able to more accurately and more efficiently perform a wide swathe of chemistry-related calculations better than any classical computer currently in operation, including Summit.

"The current benchmark is a first step towards a comprehensive suite of benchmarks and metrics that govern the performance of quantum processors for different science domains," said ORNL quantum chemist Jacek Jakowski. "We expect it to evolve with time as the quantum computing hardware improves. ORNL's vast expertise in domain sciences, computer science and high-performance computing make it the perfect venue for the creation of this benchmark suite."

Journal Reference:

Alexander J. McCaskey, Zachary P. Parks, Jacek Jakowski, Shirley V. Moore, Titus D. Morris, Travis S. Humble, Raphael C. Pooser. Quantum chemistry as a benchmark for near-term quantum computers. npj Quantum Information, 2019; 5 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41534-019-0209-0

Original Submission