Advanced Optimizations for Quantum Compilation

Xanadu’s mission is to build quantum computers that are useful and available to people everywhere. Founded in 2009, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada, the company has grown to 250+ employees, many of them scientists, researchers and engineers, working across all disciplines (hardware, software, applications, algorithms) to achieve this goal. This project is within Xanadu’s software team, which is building the complete end-to-end software solution for quantum computing (QC).
A key component of the QC software stack is the quantum compiler, the software that transforms the highlevel user quantum program, to a low level machine code that can be run on the hardware – this is analogous to classical compilers targeting today’s traditional ICs (integrated circuits). The performance and size of the machine code is largely determined by the quality and sophistication of the compiler. In particular, optimizations implemented by the compiler are critical in ensuring that a high-level program is transformed to code that is as compact and efficient as possible. A program that is not compiled optimally, may completely squander the benefits of quantum computing, taking weeks instead of hours to run.
As Xanadu moves towards building a utility scale quantum computer, it is critical that the quantum programs themselves are built efficiently, with high optimization. This will ensure that real world problems can be tackled in reasonable time at reasonable cost. This project will study optimizations for quantum compilation aimed at improving efficiency. The work is expected to show a quantitative improvement in performance, through the use of advanced techniques within Xanadu’s compilation pipeline

Faculty Supervisor:

Matt Amy

Student:

Partner:

Xanadu

Discipline:

Physics

Sector:

Information and cultural industries; Manufacturing; Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Simon Fraser University

Program: