The one pictured here is a faster, more accurate style of test for quantum computers. The credit goes to Bret Latter, a scientist at the National Laboratories.
A top draft pick in sports and a quantum computer. Both have attracted the attention of talent scouts. Like young athletes, quantum computers are constantly evaluated for their potential to become game-changing technology.
The first tool scientist-scouts can use to rank a prospective technology's ability to run realistic tasks is the ability to run realistic tasks.
A benchmark test designed at Sandia National Laboratories predicts how likely a quantum processor will run a program without errors.
The mirror-circuit method, published today in Nature Physics, is faster and more accurate than conventional tests, helping scientists develop the technologies that are most likely to lead to the world's first practical quantum computer, which could greatly accelerate research for medicine, chemistry, physics, agriculture and other fields
Scientists have been measuring performance on random operations.
According to the new research, conventional benchmark tests underestimate quantum computing errors. This can lead to unrealistic expectations of a quantum machine. According to the paper, mirror-circuits offer a more accurate testing method.
A mirror circuit is a computer routine that performs a set of calculations.
"It is standard practice in the quantum computing community to use only random, disordered programs to measure performance, and our results show that this is not a good thing to do," said computer scientist Timothy Proctor, a member of the Quantum Performance Laboratory.
The new testing method will help researchers evaluate machines. The same set of instructions on a quantum machine and a conventional computer are used in most benchmark tests. The results should match if there are no errors.
Researchers can spend a long time waiting for the regular computers to finish because quantum computers perform certain calculations much faster.
The output of a mirror circuit should always be the same as the input. Scientists can check the quantum computer's result immediately.
There are flaws in conventional performance ratings.
The tests miss or underestimate the effects of errors. When an error is compounded it becomes worse as the program runs, like a wide receiver who runs the wrong route, straying farther and farther from where they are supposed to be.
Sandia found that the final results were often larger discrepancies than the randomized tests showed.
The performance of current quantum computers is more variable than was previously known.
Scientists have greater insight into how to improve quantum computers with the mirror-circuit method.
"We were able to learn a lot about the errors that these devices suffer, because different types of errors affect different programs a different amount," he said. This is the first time these effects have been observed in a large-qubit processor. The method we use is the first one to probe these error effects at scale.
Nature Physics has more information about Timothy Proctor. www.nature.com/articles/s41567-021-01409-7
Nature physics journal information.
The power of a quantum computer has gotten faster and more accurate.
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