Q-CTRL Pty. Ltd. said today it’s collaborating with IBM Corp. to enhance the performance and efficiency of that company’s quantum computing platform.

The Australian startup said its Q-CTRL Embedded software is now available as an option for subscribers to IBM Quantum’s pay-as-you-go offering, in what marks the first time that service has integrated a third-party product.

With the integration, Q-CTRL and IBM said, they’re providing more user-friendly functionality that will help to address one of the primary challenges of quantum computing – namely the unreliability of quantum algorithms.

As the startup explains, quantum computers aren’t easy things to use. Users require lots of sophisticated skills in areas such as algorithms, compilers, quantum error suppression and mitigation. Without this kind of expertise, it’s very difficult to get reliable results from any kind of quantum machine.

That’s where Q-CTRL says it can help. The startup, which raised $27.4 million in a Series B-1 funding round in January, has created specialist software that helps tackle quantum unreliability by stabilizing the “qubits” that power them. The problem is that today’s existing quantum computers are incredibly fragile things.

IBM’s, for example, must be kept isolated in containers at temperatures close to absolute zero to maintain the stability of its qubits, which are the quantum equivalent of traditional bits. But even at these low temperatures, its systems can only run for a short period of time before errors start occurring in their calculations.

With Q-CTRL’s software, users have a way to stabilize these qubits, which can represent a one or a zero or both at the same time – the unique quality that makes them potentially much more powerful than classical computers.

Q-CTRL’s Embedded software works by visualizing qubit processing errors in a sleek dashboard that provides insights into what’s causing them. Using its integrated tools, engineers can then reprogram the circuitry of the quantum machine to correct any errors that occur.

In this way, Q-CTRL says, its software can make quantum computers much more reliable. In demonstrations, it has shown that it can improve the performance of quantum algorithms by up to 25-times.

A second advantage of Q-CTRL’s software is it can be applied to quantum sensing. This is a technique that relies on the fragility of quantum hardware to take extremely sensitive measurements that are imperceptible to standard sensors.

The technology uses trapped atoms and has applications in the precise measurement of underground water sources, monitoring weather conditions and navigating anywhere on Earth without the need for a global positioning system. Quantum sensing is just as vulnerable to errors as standard quantum calculations are, but Q-CTRL’s software helps to manage this, so the technique can be applied with much greater accuracy and confidence.

IBM’s decision to make Q-CTRL’s software available with its quantum computing service is a major validation of its effectiveness, and will help customers to better integrate useful quantum computing into their workflows, the companies said.

Subscribers to IBM Quantum’s pay-as-you-go service can now run Q-CTRL’s software using a single command via the Qiskit environment, and do so at no additional cost.

Q-CTRL founder and Chief Executive Michael Biercuk said his company has been developing and fine-tuning its quantum control software since it was first founded in 2018. He said IBM’s world-class quantum computing platform is the ideal showcase for the startup to demonstrate the effectiveness of its software.

He added it will “dramatically improve the success of real quantum algorithms.” “Detailed tests on a suite of benchmarking algorithms showed benefits up to thousands of times,” he said.

When IBM Quantum users activate Q-CTRL’s software, it will trigger a fully configured autonomous toolchain in the background that works to automatically suppress quantum errors. The startup cites peer reviewed research that shows a 10-times increase in the complexity of quantum algorithms that it’s possible to run, and a 100-times cost reduction when compared to alternative error-reduction strategies, which is achieved by reducing the number of experimental “shots” required to suppress errors. In addition, it has demonstrated a 1,000-times improvement in the overall success of quantum algorithms.

Constellation Research Inc. analyst Holger Mueller said today’s news is evidence that the nascent quantum computing market is growing in maturity, with key vendors such as IBM introducing key layers to its quantum stack. “Q-CTRL will provide much-needed error protection as an option for customers using IBM’s quantum pay-as-you-go plan,” he said. “This is a win for enterprises as they get a much easier time when using quantum computers, and a win for Q-CTRL as it can sell its software to IBM’s growing install base. Meanwhile for IBM it shows more openness and functional richness, and we can expect it to seek additional partnerships like this.”

IBM said the integration of Q-CTRL’s software will enable it to accelerate its path towards quantum advantage, which refers to the time when quantum computers surpass the capabilities of today’s most powerful supercomputers.

IBM Fellow and Vice President Jay Gambetta said his company’s goal is to enable users to run valuable quantum workloads that aren’t possible on classical computers. “A core requirement for this is reducing noise,” he explained. “The noise suppression provided by Q-CTRL’s performance management software makes exploring useful quantum circuits even easier.”

Image: Q-TRL