Researchers Integrate Quantum With Classical Computers

A new collaboration plans to integrate quantum computing technology on the same premises as high-performance computing (HPC) infrastructure to advance scientific research.

Federal research institution Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is working with Quantum Brilliance (QB) to build a joint platform to explore hybrid computing capabilities.

QB plans to install its room-temperature, rack-mounted diamond-based quantum accelerators alongside the laboratory’s HPC infrastructure to enable collaborative development.

The organizations said they plan to push the boundaries of computational capabilities and advance scientific research over the course of a long-term partnership.

The partners intend to explore the performance and effectiveness of multiple quantum processors working together with classical processors.

This is known as parallelized and hybridized quantum computing and could point the way to solving problems that are currently intractable to classical HPC computers alone.

“Parallel quantum computing holds transformative potential for scientific discovery and industrial applications that require high-performance computing,” said Oak Ridge Laboratory Quantum Science Center director Travis Humble. 

“Partnering with Quantum Brilliance allows us to explore effective integration with our existing HPC systems, paving the way for groundbreaking advancements that will inform the design of future HPC infrastructure.”

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The team plans to co-develop new computational methods to get the most out of the hybrid environment and software tools so that users can implement them.

The Oak Ridge lab and QB plan to use what they learn from the collaboration to design better future computing systems and the infrastructure tools to manage operations.

“This collaboration represents a significant milestone in our mission to bring quantum computing to practical applications,” said Quantum Brilliance CEO Mark Luo. 

“By integrating the world’s first cluster of room-temperature QPUs with ORNL's leading HPC infrastructure, we aim to demonstrate the benefits of parallel quantum computing. This is a critical milestone towards achieving massively parallelized quantum accelerators, which we believe will be the preferred architecture in HPC centers.”